MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“In the Northern part of the African nation of Mali, a refugee crisis is quickly escalating. The front page of the Vatican newspaper expressed concern over the gravity of the situation. It noted that many of the refugees were Christians that were trying to escape persecution from a version of Sharia law that has been imposed in parts of the country by a group known as the ‘Ansar Dine’ movement.

The Algerian newspaper El Khabar has reported that some 200,000 people have fled to refugee camps in Mauritania and Algeria.

In August, the UN Secretary-General has also spoken out and encouraged the Security Council to consider taking more action such as travel and financial sanctions against those responsible for the violence… ‘I am also extremely concerned about reports that armed groups in the north are committing serious human rights violations, including summary executions of civilians, rapes and torture.’

The ‘Ansar Dine’ group, which is said to have ties with al-Qaida, has also been responsible for destroying nine of the 16 mausoleums in the country’s capital of Timbuktu. These places had previously been classified as world heritage UNESCO sites.

The country’s High Islamic Council has opened talks with ‘Ansar Dine’ in hopes of finding a peaceful resolution. In the meantime, thousands continue to flee and face shortages of food, water and basic health services.” Source – Rome Reports.

Flashback: Mali: Christian Leader Beheaded as Islamists Terrorize Country, Create List of All Christians They Intend to Execute by Beheading – “A Christian leader has been beheaded and others are being threatened with similar treatment as Islamic militants run amok in Mali, West Africa. Christians have fled the town of Timbuktu in the north of the country where harsh Sharia Law has already been imposed amid reports that churches in Gao, 200 miles to the east, have been completely destroyed… ‘We have escaped in the wake of horrible death threats as the Islamists have a list of all the Christians in Timbuktu whom they intend to execute by beheading.’” Read more.

“Damascus (Agenzia Fides) – A terrorist attack hit innocent Christian faithful and innocent Druzes in the area of Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus: yesterday, August 28, at 2 pm, a bomb in a car was detonated while a crowd of faithful, families, elderly people, women and children, were heading to the cemetery to bury two young people. The two had died the day before, on August 27, also victims of an IED. As the crowd, after the funeral, was accompanying the deceased to the burial, a taxi exploded causing 12 deaths (according to other sources 27), including 5 children, and injuring more than 50 people. In Jarmana about 600 thousand people live, mostly religious minorities: there are 250 thousand Christians (Assyrians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Melkites, Orthodox and other denominations), as well as Druzes and about 120 thousand Iraqi refugees, who fled to Syria in past years.

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.

These acts, which affect innocent people, have generated anger and confusion in the Christian community. A leader of the Latin Catholic community of Damascus, who requested anonymity, told Fides: ‘These are terrorist acts: we do not know who is behind, some are groups that want to destroy Syria. Armed gangs of jihadists have begun to sow terror. The point is that even in the West, Christians are often portrayed as friends of the regime or collaborators of the repression, but it is not true. Christians are with the Syrian people and just want peace. But this propaganda gives terrorist groups, infiltrators among the rebels, a pretext to attack us.'” Source – Agenzia Fides.

James 5:8, “You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”

By John Okeke, The Guardian – “THE National Chairman, Scripture Union (SU) Nigeria, Ekpo Etim Ekpo, has advised Christians in the country to remain steadfast in their faith in Jesus Christ despite the bomb attacks on churches in the North.

The SU is an inter-denominational fellowship.

Ekpo made the charge during the Eighth Abuja Regional Conference of the union with the theme ‘The Christian and his conduct.’

He stressed that the activities of insurgents were geared towards the extermination of churches in Nigeria.

He affirmed that the union commiserated with the affected churches and the victims of bomb blasts in recent times.

‘We are all witnesses of the desperate attacks to exterminate the church in the country especially in the northern Nigeria. We use this occasion to affirm the faith of Scripture Union Nigeria in the Almighty God and in his son Jesus Christ to sustain Christians wherever they are. Scripture Union Nigeria identifies with all Christians and churches that are bombed and persecuted,’ he said.

James Ikape, the Abuja regional chairman of the union, lamented the demand of the aggrieved sect, urging Federal Government to convert 19 northern states into Islam states, adding that the request breached the freedom of worship as enshrined in the Constitution of Nigeria.

His words: ‘The enemies of the Gospel have called for the Islamination of the 19 northern states that constitute the geographical space of our region and the abridgement of our constitutional rights of freedom of worship as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution’, he stated.

Ikape stressed that despite the effort of the group to frustrate Christians in the country, God grace still abounds to the church.

He said: ‘These threats are not new to the Church of Christ. The church indeed was born in crisis and in spite of oppositions from the pit of hell. Thank God, for where sin (wickedness) abounds, grace much more abounds,’ he added.” Source – The Guardian.

Flashback: Nigeria: ‘Proud Soldiers Of Allah’ Vows To Take Down Government And Destroy Christianity, ‘We Will Devour You … Our Joy Is To Die In Jihad’ – “‘You, Jonathan, cannot stop us; instead we will devour you in the three months like you are boasting … We are proud soldiers of Allah; we will never give up as we fight the infidels. We will emerge as winners … for us, [death] is eternal victory to die working for Allah. Our joy is to die in Jihad for Allah … We are not doing physical human service, but Allah’s work … We are not afraid because we are not doing man’s work but Allah’s work…” Read more.

Romans 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [Shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 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.”

A procession of Christians bravely vows to stand firm in the faith of Christ, even unto death. An anguished church leader cries out to the Lord to deliver His people from their turmoil. A Christian mother languishes over the abduction of her daughter. This is but a mere drop in what has now become a sea of Christian persecution …

Credit: Walid Shoebat

ICC – “Washington, D.C. (August 28, 2012) –International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Muslim rioters attacked five churches and killed two people, including a policeman, in Mombasa, Kenya. The riots started yesterday and continued today after unknown gunmen killed Sheikh Aboud Rogo, a radical Muslim cleric.

The Muslim attackers blamed the police for the killing of Sheikh Rogo. He is accused of links with the Somali-based radical Islamic group, Al-Shabaab.

Christian leaders are enraged that their churches were targeted by the Muslim rioters. Speaking to ICC, one of the church leaders in the area said, ‘What is worrying us (Christians) is why [the Muslim mobs] attack church.’

The churches attacked by the Muslim mobs are: Mombasa Pentecostal Church, Jesus Celebration Center (the Redeemed Gospel Church), Neno Evangelistic Church, Salvation Army, and Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Somalia’s Islamic radical group, Al-Shabaab, supported the rioters. Their message to the Muslims said, ‘Muslims must take the matter into their own hands, stand united against the Kuffar (non-believers) and take all necessary measures to protect their religion, their honor, their property and their lives from the enemies of Islam.'” Source – Persecution.org.

Flashback: Kenya: Al-Shabaab Claims Responsibility For Church Attacks, Will Continue To Kill Those Who Do Not Worship Allah – “Somalia militia group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s twin attacks on two churches in Garissa County that left 17 people dead. The latest development came even as muslim leaders in Kenya agreed to form self-defence groups to protect churches following the deadly attacks. In a tweet on Wednesday morning, the insurgents said they carried out the attacks in retaliation for Kenya Defence Forces (KDF)’s incursion in Somalia. An Al-Shabaab loyalist Sheikh Hassan Takar said that the militia killed people who did not profess allegiance to Allah.” Read more.

Flashback: East Africa: Growing Appeal Of Radical Islam Could Have Major Ramifications For Christianity, Stable Democracies – “Al Shabaab has been waging an insurgency against Somalia’s fragile interim government since 2007 and formally became part of al Qaeda earlier this year. Abdullahi’s account is part of a mounting body of evidence – including intelligence picked up by security agencies, research by the United Nations and accounts by Muslim Kenyans interviewed for this story – that suggests al Shabaab is mentoring a new and increasingly multi-ethnic generation of militants in the region. That could have major ramifications not just for Somalia, which has been without a working government for two decades, but also for countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, relatively stable democracies whose economies are among the steadiest in Africa.” Read more.

AP – “ISLAMABAD (AP) – In the middle of a forest in the Pakistani capital, a group of Christians has cut down trees to clear land and has begun to build a church out of branches after leaving their neighborhood in fear when one of their own was accused of violating Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.

The roughly 100 men, women and children who slept overnight on the ground in a clearing just a few miles (kilometers) from the seat of the Pakistani government are fallout from the case of a young Christian girl accused by a neighbor of burning pages from Islam’s holy book, the Quran. The case has spotlighted attention on the country’s strict blasphemy laws which can result in life in prison or even death for those accused.

‘We used to come here to collect wood for fuel so we find it a suitable place for shelter,’ said Sumera Zahid, who was feeding her three children and her parents. ‘Here it is not anybody’s home, nobody’s land. Let us live here in safety.’

Their ordeal began a little less than two weeks ago when a Christian girl was accused by a neighbor of burning pages of the Quran. Much of the case is still in question including the girl’s age, whether she was mentally impaired and what exactly she was burning. But as word of the blasphemy accusation spread, hundreds of people gathered at her house demanding something be done to the girl. The police eventually arrested her and are investigating whether she broke any law.

The Associated Press is withholding the girl’s name; the AP does not generally identify juveniles under 18 who are accused of crimes.

Most Christians in the neighborhood fled, fearing retribution from their Muslim neighbors. Christian residents also reported that their landlords evicted them.

After living with relatives and in churches, many of the Christians arrived at this clearing on Sunday, determined to build a home.

‘We are thankful to the Lord for this land although here is no water and food but rest assured the Lord will create water fountains and provide all fruits here for you if you remain patient and suffer these hardship, thanking the Lord,’ said Pastor Arif Masih.” Read more.

By Salim Mansur, QMI Agency – “In the 1990s, western democracies stepped forward to stop ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia by dispatching NATO forces in support of UN peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia precipitated ethnic strife, and like all such struggles anywhere in the world, the Balkan conflict was complex and layered with history of grievances, identity politics, and religious bigotry. If one reaches back to the early years of the last century, this region was a cauldron of ethno-nationalism that ignited the First World War.

Some 16 years later, the so-called Arab Spring mirrors the conflict that ripped through the Balkans.

The rotten structures of Arab states were primed to crash once the people set aside their fear of despots. But not unlike the Balkans, the death knell of Arab dictatorships has been accompanied by predictable conflicts among people divided by religion, sect and ethnicity.

There is one stark difference, however, between the Balkans and the situation in the Arab-Muslim world.

In the Balkans, the minority most seriously hurt by the conflict were Bosnian Muslims.

It was in part to protect Bosnian Muslims that the West intervened with force and, eventually overseen by President Clinton’s administration, the parties agreed to abide by the Dayton Agreement of November 1995 reached in Dayton, Ohio and formally signed in Paris a few weeks later.

In the Arab-Muslim world, the so–called Arab Spring has hurt most seriously the dwindling Christian minorities of the Middle East. While Arab despots in the name of secularism paradoxically provided some protection to Christians, the situation has worsened with Islamists taking power.

William Dalrymple, the well-respected historian and author of From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (1998), recently wrote, ‘Wherever you go in the Middle East today, you see the Arab Spring rapidly turning into the Christian winter … The past few years have been catastrophic for the region’s beleaguered 14 million strong Christian minority.’

The decline, probably disappearance, of Christians from the Middle East is an ominous sign of a tragic future for the region.” Read more.

By Ibrahim Mshezilla – “(Reuters) – Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram ruled out on Thursday holding peace talks with the government and threatened to strike media houses it said fight the group ‘with the pen’.

The local press and at least two foreign news organizations have reported that talks are going on between the government and the militants who have been staging an insurgency against it, citing unnamed sources.

Information minister Labaran Maku declined comment on Wednesday on the talks, citing government instructions not to discuss the issue.

Since launching an insurgency against the government in 2009 with the avowed aim of turning all or part of religiously-mixed Nigeria into an Islamic state, Boko Haram has killed hundreds of people in near daily gun and bomb attacks.

‘We are telling the government to understand that if it is not ready to embrace sharia (Islamic law) and the Koran as the guiding book from which the laws of the land derive, there shall be no peace,’ the sect’s spokesman Abu Qaqa said in a written statement in the northeast city of Maiduguri, the heart of the rebellion.

Boko Haram has replaced militancy in the creeks of the oil-producing Niger Delta as the biggest security threat to Nigeria, Africa’s top energy producer. A flurry of efforts to start talks followed accusations early this year that President Goodluck Jonathan was treating the crisis too narrowly as a security issue.

But attempts at dialogue are complicated by Boko Haram’s shadowy nature and the fact there sometimes appears to be more than one faction. The main one, led by Abubakar Shekau, has never shown any overt interest in dialogue.” Read more.

Flashback: Boko Haram: Our Goal is to Eliminate Followers of Christ – “Terrorist organisation Boko Haram has issued a statement making clear that its goal is to eliminate followers of Christ from Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. ‘The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state … We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu,’ a spokesman for the group, Abul Qaqa, is said to have told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri over the phone.” Read more.

By Raymond Ibrahim – “Youm-7, one of Egypt’s popular secular media that was recently attacked by Muslim Brotherhood supporters, reports that at least seventeen Christian bookstores in Shubra, one of Cairo’s largest districts, are under threat for selling Christian icons and statues. The storeowners, who are ‘in panic,’ say they received threat letters by mail demanding that they stop selling their ‘idolatry.’

Among other things, the letters, copies of which were presented to Youm-7, say ‘We warn you Nassara [Koran’s derogatory term for Christians] to cease your foul trade, whereby you sell filthy idols.’

Accordingly, the bookshop owners rushed to the police stations to file reports in the hopes that the identities of those sending such letters be revealed. The report concludes by saying not much has been done to secure the stores and that only one security agent has been sent to patrol, and only during morning hours.” Source – Jihad Watch.

Flashback: Christian Bishop in Egypt: Christians Are Currently Experiencing Their Worst Time in Recent Centuries, Many Now Unable to Buy or Sell – “… calls are often made in the media not to buy from Christian merchants or to sell anything to Christians. Businessmen are therefore faced with a struggle for economic survival. Christians are indirectly excluded from employment, for example by job advertisements specifying ‘a female employee with headscarf’. Attempts are being made ‘to drive the Christians out’.” Read more.

Flashback: Egypt: If You Don’t Repeat the Islamic Statement of Faith, You May Not Be Able to Buy From Muslim Stores – “A friend from Egypt, who lives in Cairo says that she is regularly greeted in Muslim places of business with ‘lā ilāha illà l-Lāh, Muḥammadun rasūlu l-Lāh’ (There is no God other than Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger). If she does not respond in kind, she is asked to leave.” Read more.

By Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife – “Muslims torched Christian homes and ‘destroyed’ a church in a slum area of Islamabad while suspected militants shot at another church outside Pakistan’s capital, after the jailing of a mentally handicapped Christian girl for ‘blasphemy’, witnesses said Tuesday, August 21.

‘Our staff and a few [other] Christians went into [Islamabad’s] colony of Meherabadi [late Monday local time ],’ added Farrukh H. Saif, executive director of Pakistani rights group World Vision In Progress (WVIP).

‘We found that five houses were burned and one church was destroyed,’ he told BosNewsLife. ‘Bibles [have been torn] to pieces and a [church] cross is broken’, the official said.

Elsewhere in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi the Catholic St Matthew’s Church was ‘attacked by unknown extremist at 2 a.m. local time,’ added Saif, citing investigators.

‘They opened fire at the Church building which damaged the front of the building,’ in Karachi’s Pehlwan Goth neighborhood, he explained…

Police jailed the girl Friday, August 17, after at least hundreds of Muslim protesters demanded that she face charges under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

A local cleric had said she burned pages of the Noorani Qaida, a religious textbook used to teach the Koran to children, said Saif…

Muslim mobs have been pressuring the girl’s Christian neighbors and others to flee Saif and other rights activist said…

Thousands of Christians were still outside the slum area where the alleged burning incident happened, fearing for their lives, human rights workers said.

There were concerns late Tuesday, August 21, that at least several will have no place to return to, amid reports of burning homes.” Read more.

Pakistan: 11-Year-Old Christian Girl Accused of Blasphemy – “An 11-eleven-year old Christian girl was accused of blasphemy and arrested for allegedly burning pages of a Noorani Qaida, a booklet used to learn the basics of the Holy Quran. Officials of the Ramna Police Station told The Express Tribune that the girl, named Rifta Masih, had burned a Noorani Qaida on August 16 and threw it in garbage after putting it in a plastic bag… Soon after the incident, residents of the area had gathered to lodge their protest. The protesters also allegedly beat up the girl and her mother … The news emerged when a website called ‘Christians in Pakistan’ reported the incident. The report alleges that Rifta has Down syndrome and was falsely accused of burning 10 pages of the Holy Quran.” Read more.

Matthew 24:6-9, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all [these things] must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these [are] the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

Coptic Solidarity – “Christian Copts in Upper Egypt are under attack, hours after a call for their eradication appeared in the form of leaflets calling on Muslims to kill Copts, specifically naming regions of Upper Egypt.

A report by Fady Talaat, for Al Akhbar News, published August 14, has the details. In Al Gallaweya Village, Sohag, Upper Egypt, Christians are being beaten, their stores destroyed, and their properties plundered. The attackers are declaring that ‘any Christian who dares to leave his house will be killed’; and the Copts are complaining that the police only arrive after the damage has been completely done.

Nageh Hozar, one of the attacked victims now lying in the hospital said that a known felon, who is also a fugitive living in the village, named Mo’tassem Sedky Rashwan, came to a supermarket owned by his brother Fady Hozar to buy cigarettes. He took the cigarettes and refused to pay for them. Instead, he asked Fady to pay him EGP 50 as ‘tribute.’ When the latter refused they had a dispute. The criminal, then, left and came back with his thug brothers, cousins and friends. Zaki explained that the whole gang started beating him up along with his brothers Thomas and Fady Hozar and others, using sticks and canes, leaving them dangerously injured.

They further set four Coptic stores on fires, and looted hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of merchandise. They also attacked and robbed their houses, and even stole their ownership contracts. The gang further destroyed one car and three motorcycles, and the home doors of the Christian village inhabitants.

Zaki stated that their persecutors warned Christians from leaving their homes, promising death to whoever dared try. They said they did not want to see a single Christian in the street, which made many Christians lock themselves in. Zaki explained that in spite of the police presence in the village, Christians cannot go out because they are surrounded by criminals with machine guns. Zaki also stated that the