MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Romans 8:35, 38-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [Shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

ICC – “Tens of thousands of Christians, caught in a crossfire between Sudanese armed forces and rebels in Nuba Mountains, are facing indiscriminate air strikes, detentions, and starvation – with no access to humanitarian aid.

The Arab-Muslim dominated Khartoum government has ‘adopted a strategy to treat all populations in rebel held areas as enemies and legitimate targets, without distinguishing between civilian and combatant,’ says a Dec. 12 report by Human Rights Watch, concerning the conflict in Nuba Mountains, home to Sudan’s largest Christian population and non-Arab Muslims.

HRW’s field research shows that in the absence of an international call to end violence, bombings have greatly intensified in the Nuba Mountains state of Southern Kordofan.

Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) dropped 106 bombs in October, and 125 in the first half of November alone, the report says. ‘The persistent bombing has terrorized the population; most families have dug foxholes near their homes or moved to sheltered areas, and even small children now refer to the ‘Antonovs,’ the common name for the cargo planes used by Sudan to drop bombs.’

Government forces burned 26 Nuban villages, destroying schools, homes, churches, food crops and grasslands, in the Nuba Mountains in November alone, according to the Satellite Sentinel Project, which analyzes satellite imagery and eyewitness reports from the ground.

The U.N. estimates over 200,000 people have been displaced and fled over the borders, mostly into South Sudan. The people of Nuba Mountains are also living in constant danger of arbitrary detention, which is taking place on a massive scale and being seen as a new method of intimidation and terror to force them to leave their villages, writes Osman Naway, a local human rights defender, in an article on allafrica.com.” Read more.

Flashback: Sudan Imam: ‘We Will Never Forgive Christians For Not Being Muslims’, Suggests That Christianity Must Be Eliminated Throughout The North – “… Muslims vie to take school land and anti-Christian messages emanate from a nearby mosque loudspeaker on most Fridays. Muslim leaders have been asserting through the mosque loudspeaker that Christian institutions should not be permitted in Sudan, as the country should be a ‘purely Islamic state’ since the secession of South Sudan on July 9, 2011, he said. ‘We are expecting the level of persecution to rise in Sudan in the coming days,’ a pastor who works at the Bible school told Morning Star News by phone, adding that hostilities against churches and Christians were intensifying.” Read more.

Flashback: North Sudan: President Al-Bashir Moves Forward with Rewriting the Country’s Constitution to Implement Sharia Law – “Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is moving forward with rewriting the country’s constitution to implement Shariah law, according to reports from organizations with links inside the Muslim-dominated nation… a Shariah-compliant constitution will mean more suffering for Sudan’s remaining Christians. ‘This new law (Shariah compliant constitution) is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum (the capital city). There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan,’ Racho said.” Read more.

Revelation 6:9-11, “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both [the number of] their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they [were], was completed.”

Osun Defender – “The non-Muslim population resident in the Muslim dominated northern Nigerian State of Kano continues to suffer death in the hands on the native Kano indigene.

Information available to 247ureports.com indicates that two teenage students, aged 16 and 17 years were shot dead by unknown Muslim gunmen on Thursday December 6, 2012 at the Yankaba area of Kano metropolitan city near Hadeja road.

Eyewitness reports indicate that the shooting incident occurred some minutes after 7pm near Yankaba area popularly referred as Anambra – line when unknown gunmen riding on a motorbike instantly shot the two teenagers to death at close range – while wailing ‘Allah is Great’ in Arabic. The gunmen escaped immediately.

The names of the two teenagers killed were Daniel Nwachukwu, aged 17 [from Owerri] and Chukwuemeka Emmanuel Agazie [from Umuchu], aged 16. Both were childhood friends who grew up in Yankaba. Daniel recently secured university admission in Imo state.

247ureports.com spoke to the fathers of the murdered boys, Solomon Agazie and Nwachukwu. They expressed shock and disbelief over the killing of their innocent sons in cold blood. Mr Nwachukwu who was heavily saddened, cried repeatedly ‘Who killed my son? What offence has he committed to be shot instantly to death without justice?’

The father told our correspondent that on Thursday, Daniel visited his friend, Chukwuebuka and while Chukwuebuka was seeing off Daniel just 200 metres away from his home, when Chukwuebuka sister, who was in the bathroom had two gun shots, rushed out to the scene, only to discover that her brother and friend had been shot to death.

In panic, she alerted her parents. Both fathers rushed out to see the dead body of their two boys lying in a pool of blood – bullet riddled body.

Within about 10minutes after the shooting, the agents of the Joint Task Force [JTF] stationed in Kano arrived and carried the bodies of the teenagers to the Bompai Police station where the incident was recorded and thereafter the bodies were taken to the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital mortuary for autopsy.” Read more.

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

Matthew 10:22, “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

By Joseph Mahmoud – “Baghdad (AsiaNews) – An Advent of light and shadow for Iraq’s Christians, who are celebrating the reopening of the cathedral of Baghdad but at the same time subjected to new – and heavy – threats from a radical Shiite Muslim leader. From studies of a television broadcaster based in Egypt, an Iraqi Ayatollah launches a fatwa against the religious minority on the eve of Christmas: ‘Conversion to Islam or death.’ However, strength of faith overcomes the fear of violence as witnessed by celebrations for the ‘rebirth’ of the Syrian Catholic cathedral in the capital, the scene of a bloody attack at the end of October 2010.

In an interview last December 13 on Egyptian television Al Baghdadia, the Shiite ayatollah Ahmad Al Hassani Al Baghdadi issued a fatwa against Christians in Iraq. Labeling them as ‘polytheists’ and ‘friends of the Zionists’, the extremist leader stressed that they must choose ‘or Islam or death,’ while ‘their women and girls may legitimately be regarded wives of Muslims.’ Al Baghdadi is known for his ‘jihad’ positions and for attacking Americans in the past during their presence in the country, and today he lives in Syria, supporting the armed opposition.

Catholic sources in the capital tell AsiaNews that it is ‘a very serious fatwa,’ but ‘it is unlikely that people will be upset too much.’ The government pays ‘attention’ to these proclamations by extremists, however it is possible that such words could ‘create panic in some areas of the capital,’ where there are now ‘very few’ Christians.” Read more.

Flashback: Iraq: Islamic Extremists Want to Eliminate Christians From Country, Mass Movement of Christians Continues Unabated – “Ongoing violence against Christians in Iraq has produced an accelerated exodus of believers recently and numbering in the hundreds of thousands over the last 10 years, said Open Doors USA officials… ‘At the beginning of the summer, Open Doors estimated the number of Christians remaining in Iraq at 345,000. However, the number decreases every month,’ officials stated. ‘It is an estimation; some even think there are less Christians left in the country than that,’ another Open Doors member said.” Read more.

Flashback: Iraq’s ‘Twilight of Christianity’: Fleeing Islamic Extremism, Exodus From North Signals Iraqi Christians’ Slow Decline – “Iraq’s dwindling Christians, driven from their homes by attacks and intimidation, are beginning to abandon the havens they had found in the country’s north, discouraged by unemployment and a creeping fear that the violence they had fled was catching up to them. Their quiet exodus to Turkey, Jordan, Europe and the United States is the latest chapter of a seemingly inexorable decline that many religious leaders say tolls the twilight of Christianity in a land where city skylines have long been marked by both minarets and church steeples. Recent assessments say that Iraq’s Christian population has now fallen by more than half since the 2003 American invasion, and with the military’s departure, some Christians say they lost a protector of last resort.” Read more.

For peaceful purposes …

BBC – “Authorities in Pakistan have held three people over a threat to bomb a church school in Islamabad unless it paid them $51,000 (£38,000), officials say.

A letter sent to the school, apparently by a little-known militant group, demanded cash for not bombing it.

It accused the church school of offering prayers for Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was injured by a Taliban gunmen in October.

Correspondents say this is being taken seriously by Pakistani intelligence .

The letter was received by the school in November and intelligence officials are still investigating.

It warned the church administration that they would be ‘responsible for the consequences’ if they reported the cash demand to the authorities.

The three arrests were made in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police say.

The BBC’s Shahzad Malik in Islamabad says that the letter was sent by a previously unknown group called the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Suicide Attackers Group.

Our correspondent says that while the Pakistani Taliban generally assumes responsibility for militant attacks, insurgent groups operating in the field often chose a variety of different names.

There are numerous instances where these groups have carried out attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, our correspondent says.” Read more.

Flashback: Christians In Pakistan Told To Convert To Islam Or Leave, ‘Otherwise They Will Face Consequences’ – “Last Sunday when Church service was over, more than dozen Muslim criminals gathered in front of Church and started harassing Christian girls who were leaving after services. Ahmed Bhatti and Muslim home owners of area ordered their Christians tenants to convert to Islam otherwise vacate their properties. They have vacated some shops that were run by Christians. One Christian man had his Gospel music on in the shop; they beat him up and kicked him out from that shop on gunpoint. Ahmed Bhatti on his microphone was shouting, ‘I am giving Christians this invitation to convert to Islam otherwise they will face consequences’ while announcement was made gathering of Muslims were raising Islamic Slogans.” Read more.

2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

And those who love darkness will always seek to destroy the light that exposes their evil …

By Steve Nolan, Mail Online – “A Muslim man was jailed for life today for stabbing his devout Christian ex-girlfriend 13 times after they split following bitter rows about him wanting their young daughter to convert to Islam.

Esther Arogundade, 32, was attacked by kitchen porter Shola Adebiyi in her own home after she began a relationship with another man.

Adebiyi also drank oven cleaner in an attempt to kill himself and phoned Esther’s new lover to say he would never see her again before confessing to the killing to a friend.

Police broke into the mother-of-two’s home in Salford, Greater Manchester, and found KFC worker Esther lying dead on the kitchen floor with multiple stab wounds to her back and front.

Adebiyi was jailed at Manchester Crown Court for a minimum of 20-and-a-half years after admitting killing her.

The court heard how Esther began dating Adebiyi in 2007 and that they later had a daughter now aged two but split up last year after a series of rows.

Rob Hall prosecuting said: ‘These arguments were ignited by differences of opinion over the religion of their daughter – the defendant wanted her to convert from Christian to Islam, but Esther was a church goer.” Read more.