MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post -“The Central Sulawesi Police bomb squad detonated a homemade bomb on Tuesday found by a junior high school student in Tonipa hamlet, Poso Pesisir district in Poso as the situation in the Christian-majority regency remained under control.

Police detonated the bomb after identifying the suspicious object, found at around 6:30 a.m. local time, was a homemade bomb placed in a 1 kilogram paint can.

The bomb was found by a ninth grader at the SMP 4 state junior high school in Poso as he was waiting for a public minivan to go to school. The student stumbled upon the white can strapped with black tape and immediately reported it to the Tonipa hamlet head who later reported the matter to the police.

At around 7 a.m., personnel from the Indonesian Military (TNI) and police arrived at the location where the bomb was found, followed by members from the bomb squad who arrived an hour later and detonated the bomb at the site.

Poso Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Eko Santoso confirmed the discovery of the bomb, which was likely intended to be detonated through a cell phone. He said the current situation around the location was secure and residents had carried out their daily activities as usual.

He expected that residents would remain calm and not be provoked by the terror perpetrated by particular groups in Poso recently.

He also urged residents not to be provoked by rumors involving tribal affiliations, religion, race and societal groups (SARA) issues, which were intentionally spread to disrupt the peace in Poso regency.

Earlier on Monday, a homemade bomb exploded at a traffic police post in Kasintuvu subdistrict in Poso, wounding a police officer and a bank security guard.

With regard to the burning of a Pantekosta church early on Monday in Madale village, Poso, Eko said that his subordinates were investigating the matter. An unidentified witness of the church’s congregation had been questioned, but little information was obtained.” Read more.

By Mathias Hariyadi, AsiaNews – “Jakarta (AsiaNews) – The city of Poso, in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi, has been the scene of renewed sectarian violence against the local Protestant minority. Overnight on Sunday, unknown assailants set fire to the Madele Pentecostal Church. The quick intervention of the congregation stopped the fire from spreading and spared the building from serious damages. The anti-Christian attack ‘occurred last night around midnight,’ Poso Police Chief Eko Santoso said, confirming the sectarian nature of the incident. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, but Poso Regency (District) has a large Christian community. It saw bloody clashes that left thousands of people dead on both sides until a peace deal was struck in 2002.

The fire started when a collection box was doused with petrol and then set alight. Flames eventually spread to the pastor’s residence. Only the intervention of the fire department and volunteers prevented the blaze from causing major damages to the two buildings. Rev Aben thanked villagers, including “some Muslims,” who came to rescue, playing a decisive role in preventing the fire from spreading.

Yesterday, two car bombs also exploded near a police traffic post, wounding three people, including two police agents on duty at the time. Investigators believe the post was the target.

‘The terrorist group used a sophisticated device in which they detonated the bomb remotely through a mobile handset,’ one agent said.

In recent weeks, Poso has been the scene of renewed sectarian violence. The port city has seen attacks against Christian-owned buildings, including places of worship.

Two law enforcement agents have also been murdered under mysterious circumstances. They went missing whilst investigating a recent attack against a prominent member of the Christian community. Their bodies were found after eight days on the side of a road near a training centre connected to an extremist Muslim group.” Read more.

Flashback: Massive Increase of Radical Islamism Spreads Throughout Indonesia, Including ‘Top-Quality’ Universities – “The suicide bombing of a church in Central Java on Sept. 25 pointed not only to a new level of attacks on religious minorities in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country but to a political bent that accommodates Islamist extremism. ‘Radicalization of Islamic teachings and understanding is a problem in Indonesia,’ admitted Dr. H. Nasaruddin Umar, director general of Islamic Community Guidance under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. ‘There’s a need to re-explain the concept of jihad.’ Pino Damayanto, aka Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, who blew himself up wounding over 20 members of the Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (Bethel Full Gospel Church) in Solo on Sept. 25, apparently believed it was his religious duty to kill ‘the enemies of Islam,’ according to his understanding of ‘jihad.’” Read more.

By Ruth Sherlock, The Telegraph – “A car bomb exploded outside a police station in the Old City of Damascus on Sunday, drawing the city’s historical Christian quarter into the civil war.

Up to 10 people were killed and 15 wounded as the charge detonated at the historical gate of Bab Touma, a busy pick up point for taxis and buses.

‘The bomb exploded as people were moving to go to Churches for Sunday mass. It exploded just outside the police station. There was a bus stop right beside it,’ said a resident calling himself George who works in a hotel just a few streets away from the explosion. ‘I felt the explosion. The ground beneath me shook and I can see black smoke rising from the area.

‘Terrorists are doing this,’ said George, a Christian who, like many residents in Bab Touma lives in fear of the rebel fighters trying to gain control of the capital.

Encircled by thick rock historic city walls, the narrow alleyways and wooden roofed Damascene homes of the Old City had thus far remained largely insulated from the fighting that has reached the capital in recent months…

The bomb detonated as UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.” Read more.

Flashback: Syria: Entire Christian Family Beheaded By Suspected Islamists In Damascus – “As reported by Fides sources in Damascus, the Christians in the suburbs of Jaramana (south-west of Damascus) and Zamalka (South-East of the city) are under pressure from armed groups jiahdisti and are terrified. Today in Zamalka a family of Armenian Christians was found murdered, and all members of the family horribly decapitated. The execution brings to mind the work of radical Islamist Salafis.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Deliberate and Growing’: Christian Persecution From ‘Arab Spring’ Insurgents in Syria Becoming a Steadily Growing Reality, ‘It Will Never Be the Same Anymore’ – “Refugees who have fled to Jordan from Syria are telling mission leaders supported by Christian Aid Mission about deliberate, new persecution from the ‘Arab Spring’ insurgents who are seeking to overthrow the brutal Assad regime in Damascus. Nearly 100,000 Christians so far have fled from Homs and other cities being targeted by government forces, but it is no longer just to escape the crossfire. Now, more reports are revealing that a new wave of persecution is deliberate and growing… ‘It is over; we can’t get back what we lost … It will never be the same anymore for me or my family.’” Read more.

By Paul Jongas and Stefan J. Bos – “At least hundreds of residents began fleeing northeastern Nigeria Sunday, October 21, after three days of Islamic attacks against churches and other targets left dozens dead.

Among the churches hit by suspected fighters of the militant Boko Haram group since Thursday, October 18, was an evangelical congregation in Nigeria’s troubled Borno State.

Reporters said gunmen of attacked the building of the Church of Brethren in Nigeria in Atagara village in the Gwoza area, killing at least two people.

The entire church was reportedly set ablaze as part of a wider campaign in the state that also involved killing a Chinese engineer and three colleagues.

CHURCH TORCHED

At least one church was also torched by militants in the northeastern city of Potiskum, where at least 31 people were killed in the last three days, including one or more policemen, according to refugees and reporters.

Most churches were closed Sunday, October 21, as worshipers kept away for fear of attack, residents said.

‘Christian residents stayed home for safety reasons,’ French news agency AFP quoted resident Bukar Kolo as saying. ‘A church was also burnt in the attack and people are afraid to go for Sunday church service for fear of possible attack,’ he said.

It was not immediately clear how many Christians were among the dead and injured in Potiskum, but witnesses said that besides the church many other properties had been burned.

HIGHER DEATH TOLL?

Residents said the toll could be higher than the reported 31 killed in Potiskum, as some relations had taken some bodies from the streets for burial.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western Education is a Sin’ has been fighting for an Islamic state in especially central and northern Nigeria, where it has demanded that Christians leave the area.

The militant campaign and the military response are believed to have left more than 2,800 people dead since 2009.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, is divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

The government has come under pressure to improve security, though soldiers were seen patrolling the streets of the crisis-hit areas.” Source – BosNewsLife.

By RAYMOND IBRAHIM, Family Security Matters – “The West sighed in relief when Rimsha Masih, the 14-year-old Christian girl arrested in Pakistan on August 16 for allegedly burning pages of the Quran, was finally released. Yet the West remains clueless concerning the graphic abuses-including rape and murder-Christian children in Pakistan routinely suffer, simply for being Christian. Consider two stories alone, both of which occurred at the same time Rimsha’s blasphemy ordeal was making headlines around the world.

On August 14, another Christian girl, 12-year-old Muqadas Kainat (which means ‘Holy Universe’) was ambushed in a field near her home in Sahawil by five Muslim men who ‘gang raped and murdered‘ her. At the time, her father was at a hospital visiting her sick mother. He and other family members began a frantic search, until a tip led them to the field where his daughter’s body lay. The postmortem revealed that she had been ‘gang raped and later strangled to death by five men.’ Police, as usual, did not arrest anyone. As a Salem News report puts it, ‘Complicating matters is the fact that several Christian girls in this remote area have been raped and forced to both marry into the Muslim community and abandon their own religion, human rights groups report…. there is a history in this part of Pakistan according to the Christian community, of local authorities failing to investigate cases of rape or other violence against Christians, often for fear of influential Muslims or militants.’

Similarly, on August 20, an 11-year-old Christian boy, Samuel Yaqoob, went to the markets of Faisalabad to buy food for his family, never to return. According to Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, ‘After extensive searching his body was found near a drain in the Christian colony, bearing marks of horrific torture, with the murder weapon nearby. His nose, lips and belly had been sliced off, and his family could hardly recognize him because the body was so badly burnt. Some 23 wounds by a sharp weapon have been identified in the autopsy. When sending his body for an autopsy, police raised the possibility of sodomy. Parts of Pakistani culture have a strong homosexual pederast culture, and Christian and other minority boys are especially susceptible to rape and abuse because of the powerlessness of their community and their despised status. In one case fairly recently, a Christian boy was kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed by a police officer, his body similarly being dumped in a drain.’

These were just some of the stories concerning the sexual abuse and murder of Pakistan’s Christian children that occurred last August-even as the world stood in awe at the Rimsha Masih blasphemy case. Here are 10 more examples, chosen at random from the many former documented cases: Read more…

By Ahmed Sakaharuna Umar, Business Week – “JOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nomadic Muslim herdsmen attacked a Christian village in central Nigeria over long-running land disputes, killing at least 30 people in their latest assault, police said Wednesday.

The attack in Benue state comes as a bomb exploded Wednesday in northeast Nigeria, apparently killing a police officer and sparking reprisal attacks by the military in the region, residents said.

In Benue state, the attack Sunday targeted a rural village of Christian Tiv people called Yogbo in the state, police spokesman Daniel Ezeala said. After the attack, those living there fled, community leader Daniel Tsenghul said.

The Tiv are one the largest of the minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people and more than 250 different ethnicities.

The Tiv and the Hausa-Fulani herdsmen have previously fought over land in Benue. In December, authorities said fighting between the two groups displaced some 5,000 people.

Meanwhile, a bomb detonated Wednesday morning in Potiskum, Yobe state, which targeted soldiers in the city trying to fight the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. Security forces later cordoned off large portions of the city and began a door-to-door search, state police commissioner Patrick Egbuniwe said. Residents there said they heard gunshots throughout the day as soldiers raided civilian homes. At least four homes were set ablaze by soldiers, the residents said.” Read more.

Scores Feared Dead As Fulanis, Tivs Renew Bloody Attacks – “No fewer than 30 persons were feared killed and property worth several millions of naira destroyed in a renewed hostility by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Yogbo Village in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State. Daily Sun gathered that the attackers stormed the village at about 7a.m. on Sunday when most of the villagers were in church and killed mostly women and children. According to eyewitnesses the killers took the villagers unawares and disappeared immediately after the dastardly act.” Read more.

Please pray for Christians in Iran and for all Christians in the Islamic world that they be given the strength to hold fast to the faith of Jesus and endure until the end …

Revelation 2:10, “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

By Stefan J. Bos – “TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)– Massive arrests of evangelical Protestant Christians, including many former Muslims, are reported in Iran, with men and women being dragged to prisons across the Islamic nation.

‘We have learned that at least 100, but perhaps as many as 400 people, have been detained over the last 10 days,’ said Firouz Khandjani, a council member of the ‘Church of Iran’ house church movement.

Speaking from an undisclosed location, he told BosNewsLife late Saturday, October 13, that forces of the feared intelligence service, who he called ‘Iran’s Gestapo’, broke up worship services in Esfehan, Shiraz and Tehran areas.

‘They are of several movements. But it has become clear that Protestant Christians are now viewed as enemy number one of the state,’ Khandjani said. ‘We need urgent prayers,’ he added when asked what believers need most.

CHURCH MEMBERS DETAINED

He said among those detained late Friday, October 12, are at least five members of the Church of Iran in the city of Shiraz, including Mohammad Roghangir, known locally as ‘Brother Vahid’, who led a house church service attended by some 15 people.

‘We are also concerned about sister Roxana Forughi as this is the second time she is being detained.’

Other Christians captured during the same raid were Read more…

No reason was given for the Karachi attack in the article below, but recent reports of “blasphemy” accusations against a 16-year-old boy in Karachi and calls to “kill Christian infidels” could be related …

Pakistan Christian Post – “Karachi: October 12, 2012. (PCP) Saleem Khurshid Khokhar, Member Provincial Assembly Sindh, Chairman Standing Committee on Minorities Affairs Sindh and President, All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) Sindh Chapter on Friday called for protection and security to the life and property of the people belonging to the minority communities.

On the news of attack on St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Old Haji Camp, Karachi he immediately visit the church. The MPA strongly condemned the today’s attack on Church where cars of Father’s, holy books, doors and windows of the churches smashed to pieces.

He urged the Government of Sindh to immediately bring the culprits to book and mete out exemplary punishment to them.

Saleem Khursheed Khokhar also called for the restoration of the ‘Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan’ as Quaid-e-Azam had said, ‘In the new State of Pakistan, we shall all be Pakistanis. You are free to go to your temples, your mosques, to your churches and all citizens shall be equal in the eyes of the law.’

He said the religious minorities feels unsafe. He stressed that we should respect each religion.” Source – Pakistan Christian Post.

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.