MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

While the West continues to sleep, we must not. Caution: Please be forewarned that the videos linked to in the article below will be extremely disturbing to some …

By Raymond Ibrahim, Frontpage Mag – “Based on a widely circulated video and statements from the Vatican, it was believed that Fr. Francois Murad, a Catholic Syrian priest, was recently beheaded in Syria.  It was not long before others ‘vigorously denied‘ the story, saying that the Christian priest was actually shot dead.  And now that’s fast become the ‘big’ news.  For example, according to the Telegraph, ‘The footage, said to show Father Francois Murad, 49, as the victim in a brutal summary execution by foreign jihadists is likely to be an older video that bares no relation to the death of the Catholic priest. Father Murad ‘died when he was shot inside his church’ in the northern Syrian Christian village of Ghassaniyeh on June 23, three separate local sources, who did not wish to be named, told the Telegraph.’

So apparently that makes it better?  That seems to be the Telegraph’s take, for it continues: ‘Claims that Father Murad was one of two men to be decapitated by a foreign jihadist group went viral, with outrage expressed in blogs and articles worldwide.’ So now that he wasn’t beheaded, only shot dead inside his church, there’s no longer any call for ‘outrage’?

At any rate, welcome to the ‘distraction’ tactic being exploited by the many elements trying to minimize the atrocities being committed by the jihadis—also known as the ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA)—in Syria.  Supporters of these jihadis exploit the fact that, in a time of war, as currently in Syria, news is not always reliable.  They also claim that any news that portrays the Syrian government as the ‘good guys’—such as nonstop videos of the FSA committing atrocities—is just pro-Assad propaganda, that cannot be trusted (they never seem to see the flipside to this logic, that Western media can be disseminating false anti-Assad propaganda).

Thus, let’s not focus too much on the exact particulars—for indeed, exact information is not always clear—and rather acknowledge the big picture: namely that beheadings have become very common in Syria, even if we don’t always know the identities of those beheaded.  But we do know who are doing the beheadings: al-Qaeda linked jihadis who are trying to transform Syria into a Sharia-ruling emirate.

Consider the video which some are now saying was not Fr. Murad—who was only shot (whew!)  Whoever the men being beheaded are, what you are witnessing is the true face of the Syria ‘rebellion’—jihadis, most of them obviously foreigners.  The ring leader appears perhaps Chechnyan, and can hardly speak proper Arabic (but one of the few phrases that he utters that is understandable is ‘we are enforcing the rules of Allah’).  The bound men are then beheaded to wild cries of ‘Allahu Akbar!’

To appreciate the frequency of such beheadings, do a quick YouTube search with words like ‘Syria’ and ‘beheadings,’ and you will see any number of graphic videos of Syrians being beheaded by U.S.-backed jihadis.  These are the videos that have still not been identified and removed by YouTube, but which likely soon will.  Before them, there were many others that are now gone.

Among some of the ones currently up, are

Revelation 13:12a, 15b, “It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast … and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

By Monica Mark, The Guardian – “The leader of Nigeria’s Islamist militant group Boko Haram has called for more attacks against schools, describing western education as a ‘plot against Islam’, in a video released days after his fighters killed 46 students in an assault on a dorm.

In the 15-minute recording released at the weekend, Abubakar Shekau said schools would continue to be targeted ‘until our last breath’.

‘Teachers who teach western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students, and tell the students to henceforth study the Qur’an,’ he said, gesticulating energetically while dressed in military fatigues and a traditional hat.

Shekau denied that his fighters killed children. ‘Our religion does not permit us to touch small children and women, we don’t kill children,’ he said, reading from sheets of paper as he cradled a Kalashnikov. He also dismissed talk of a ceasefire. Last week the government said it had signed a deal with Shekau’s second-in-command.

With its ability to launch attacks reduced by a military crackdown, Boko Haram is redrawing the battle lines in Nigeria’s four-year insurgency by going after softer targets. A recent spate of attacks on schools is part of a two-pronged strategy that plays up the extremists’ ideology against western institutions while also providing a stream of potential new recruits as frightened parents pull their children out of education.

Unschooled and unemployed children are increasingly being recruited – sometimes forcibly – to fill the ranks of Boko Haram and unleash violence against their peers, the Guardian has learned. Witnesses say many are plied with dates stuffed with tramadol – a narcotic used to tranquilise horses – before being sent on missions.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: 30 Killed After Boko Haram Gunmen Attack Boarding School, Many Children Burned Alive – “Islamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some of the pupils were burned alive in the latest school attack blamed on a radical terror group, survivors said. Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims. Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Suspected Islamists Massacre Entire Christian Family, Including Five Little Children – “Christians in central Nigeria could mourn their dead Sunday, February 24, after the massacre of a Christian family while sectarian clashes killed one person and left churches, homes and mosques burnt, officials said. In one the worst incidents since Thursday, February 21, suspected Muslim attackers used machetes and guns to murder 10 members of the same Christian family in Plateau state, with half the victims under the age of six, the military and government confirmed.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Islamists Tie Up And Slit Throats Of At Least 15 Men, Women And Children In Maiduguri – “SUSPECTED radical Islamist gunmen have attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, tying up men, women and children before slitting their throats and killing at least 15 in the troubled region’s latest attack. The assault happened early on Friday morning in the village of Musari on the outskirts of Maiduguri. The gunmen, suspected of being members of Boko Haram, shouted religious slogans and later ordered people to gather up into a group, said Mshelia Inusa, a primary school teacher in the village.” Read more.

And what the Ottoman Turks left behind was the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians. The West is often all too willing to rebuke Israel when they defend themselves against Palestinian death-loving terrorists, but are all too often indifferent when it comes to the plight of Middle Eastern Christians just trying to survive …

By Joseph Puder, Frontpage Mag – “The destinies of Syria and Lebanon have been intertwined since the days of French colonial rule, in between the two world wars.  It is for this reason that the ongoing civil war in Syria has had its impact on Lebanon.  Lebanon is more divided on the issue of the Syrian uprising than any other country in the region.

The Syrian regime has dominated its smaller Lebanese neighbor since the mid-1970s.  It has loyal allies and sworn enemies.  The Syrian crisis threatens to escalate tensions between and within Lebanon’s largest religious communities, all of whom have a complex relationship with Syria’s President Bashar Assad. The Shiite-Muslims of Lebanon overwhelmingly support the Syrian government of Bashar Assad.  Hezbollah, in particular, has a close alliance with Assad.  The vast majority of Sunni-Muslims in Lebanon support the largely Sunni-led uprising in Syria. The Christians are divided between political parties that rely on Assad’s support.  Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, is allied with Hezbollah and Assad, while those Christian parties who are part of the March 14 Movement (allied with the Saudis and the U.S.) strongly oppose Syria and the Assad regime’s influence in Lebanon.

Joseph Hakim is a Lebanese native and President of the International Christian Union (ICU).  In Hakim’s view, the jihadi forces within the Syrian opposition and Hezbollah on the other side, have used the conflict in Syria to ethnically cleanse the Christians.  According to Hakim, the indigenous Christian minority in Syria is being ‘forced out of their native cities, towns, and villages.’  Hakim bemoaned the passivity of the free world as it witnessed Christians being slaughtered, churches firebombed, priests being beheaded, and bishops kidnapped. ‘I feel that I am being accurate in calling what is happening genocide.’

As far as Hakim is concerned, there is a coordinated effort to force the indigenous Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria out of the Middle East. He sees the conflict in Syria as a war between the Shiite forces sponsored by Iran and supported by Hezbollah on the Assad regime side, with the Sunni jihadist side being sponsored and supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.  In the Lebanese context, however, Hakim considers Saad Hariri as the leader of the Sunni forces, and fears that he is taking orders from the Saudis, which will ultimately result in Al-Qaida insertion into Lebanon. That is true particularly in Sunni-majority cities like Tripoli and the Palestinians camps. ‘Hezbollah,’ Hakim maintained, ‘is the strongest party in Lebanon, and it is much stronger than either the Lebanese Army or the government.’

Hakim cited the recent clash near Sidon, Lebanon’s third largest city, as an example of how Read more…

For peaceful purposes …

Coptic Nun Stabbed Outside Church In Alexandria By Muslim Attacker

By ANGELLA JOHNSON, Mail Online – “The mob converging on a church on the outskirts of Cairo were armed only with sticks and stones.

But their frenzied attack on a lone, elderly Coptic priest was merciless.  Father Matthew Awad had refused to reveal the whereabouts of a Muslim woman who had converted to Christianity. For this offence, he was assaulted, suffered death threats and barely escaped with his life.

Today, he is in hiding. His entire family fear for their safety. Matthew’s son, shop owner Marco Awad, cannot set foot in public after he was arrested and tortured by Egyptian police officers sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two of his three young children are with him in a safe house while his sister, wife and four month-old-son have fled Egypt to Britain and are now staying in Brighton.

Marco, who refused to be photographed because of the risk to his life, told The Mail on Sunday from a monastery in the desert: ‘Muslim fundamentalists are killing our priests, kidnapping our women and burning our churches. Since the 2011 revolution, Coptics like me have lived in fear of our lives. I’m being forced to live apart from my family because of my faith.’

The minority Christian group are reeling after a frightening rise in religiously-motivated attacks. Last Thursday, the decapitated body of church elder Magdy Lamay Habib, 59, was found in a graveyard, six days after he was kidnapped by extremists in northern Sanai.

And priest Father Mina Aboud Sharobeel, 39, was shot dead when Islamic gunmen opened fire as he drove home from a weekly grocery shop at a market in the town of El Arish, near the Gaza border.

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are believed to have launched the attacks because they blame Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II for backing the military’s removal of President Mohammed Morsi from power on July 3.

Christians are especially vulnerable in Sinai, where much of the population is armed and the local economy hinges on the smuggling of weapons, drugs and people.

Security officials believe a local branch of Jabhat al-Nusra, the feared Islamist group that is fighting against the Syrian government, may also be operating in Sinai. As are Jihadist groups, including affiliates of Al Qaeda.” Read more.

For peaceful purposes …

AKI – “A Christian shopkeeper’s headless corpse was found in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, the second slaying of Christian there since the military deposed Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on 3 July.

Arabic satellite TV channel al-Arabiya cited Egyptian security sources as saying that 60-year-old Magdy Habashi had been abducted last Saturday in the city of Sheikh Zweid. His remains were found in a cemetery.

A Coptic Christian priest, Mina Abboud Sharobeen, was shot dead by gunmen on 6 July in the flashpoint city al-Arish in the northern Sinai.

Investigators suspect Islamic extremists are behind the two murders.

Egypt’s Christians make up around 10 percent of the country’s population and have frequently been targeted by Islamists.

Islamist extremists are believed to have shot dead a 28-year-old man who ran a bar selling alcohol the centre of al-Arish in May.

The ousting of Egypt’s longterm president Hosni Mubarak in a popular revolt in 2011 emboldened militant Islamists who have carried out a number of attacks in the lawless North Sinai and across the border in Israel.” Source – AKI.

Muslim Brotherhood Supporters Wave Black Flag Of Al Qaeda In The Sinai, ‘The Era Of Peace Has Ended’ – “Black jihadist flags, inset with the white oblong cartouche favoured by Syrian affiliates of al-Qaeda, were being waved above a cheering crowd. An angry speaker addressed the masses. ‘We need to form a council of war,’ he shouted, sounding hoarse from excitement. ‘The era of peace has ended. If the army attack us we will attack back. We say to the Egyptian army that the day might yet come when we tell it to leave Sinai.'” Read more.

‘Diabolical’: Christians Are Being Tortured, Slaughtered In The Sinai Just For Being Christians – “… this Christian man from the African country of Eritrea is going by ‘Philip,’ but that’s not his real name. CBN News covered his identity for his protection. ‘In some cases, we were tortured simply because we were Christians,’ he told us, his chest trembling slightly as he spoke… Shorham has documented more than 1,300 cases of torture in the Sinai. Those survivors, like Philip, made it to Israel. But most of the cases of torture are not documented. ‘They torture them in horrible methods, like hanging upside down from the ceiling, like using electric shocks, like burning them on their bodies,’ Shorham said …” Read more.

By HAMZA HENDAWI, The Republic – “CAIRO — With a mob of Muslim extremists on their tail, the Christian businessman and his nephew climbed up on the roof and ran for their lives, jumping from building to building in their southern Egyptian village. Finally they ran out of rooftops.

Forced back onto the street, they were overwhelmed by several dozen men. The attackers hacked them with axes and beat them with clubs and tree limbs, killing Emile Naseem, 41. The nephew survived with wounds to his shoulders and head and recounted the chase to The Associated Press.

The mob’s rampage through the village of Nagaa Hassan, burning dozens of Christian houses and stabbing to death three other Christians as well, came two days after the military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi from power. It was no coincidence the attackers focused on Naseem and his family: He was the village’s most prominent campaigner calling for Morsi’s removal.

Some Christians are paying the price for their activism against Morsi and his Islamist allies in a backlash over his ouster last week.

Since then, there has been a string of attacks on Christians in provinces that are strongholds of hard-liners. In the Sinai Peninsula, where militant groups run rampant, militants gunned down a priest in a drive-by shooting as he walked in a public market.

Egypt’s Christian minority, about 10 percent of the population, long shunned politics for fear of reprisals, relying on their church to make their case to those in power. That changed in the revolutionary fervor when autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011, as Christians started to demand a say in the country’s direction.

But they took it to a new level during Morsi’s year in office and the empowerment of his Islamist allies. The new Coptic Christian pope, Tawadros II, enthroned in November, openly criticized the president. He told Christians they were free to actively participate in politics and that the church will not discourage them.

‘The Christians have emerged from under the robes of the clergy and will never go back,’ said Ezzat Ibrahim, an activist from Minya, a southern province with a large Christian community.

It was a risky gamble for a minority that has long felt vulnerable, with its most concentrated communities often living in the same rural areas where the most vehement and vocal Islamists hold sway.

During Morsi’s year in office, some of his hard-line allies increasingly spoke of Christians as enemies of Islam and warned them to remember they are a minority. When the wave of protests against Morsi began on June 30, Brotherhood media depicted it as dominated by Christians — and to hard-liners, it smacked of Christians rising up against a Muslim ruler.” Read more.