Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The War on Christians | The Weekly Standard

A survivor of the bombing at All Saints Church in Peshawar, which killed 80.


The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds that Christians are suffering persecution in more places today than any other religious group; between 2006 and 2012, Pew says, they were targeted for harassment in 151 countries—three-quarters of the world’s states. Similar findings are reported by the Vatican, Newsweek, the Economist, and the 60-year-old Christian support group Open Doors. Most people in the West are unaware of these facts, though that may be changing.


The War on Christians | The Weekly Standard

Iraqi Shi’ite fighters in Syria head home to fight ISIL

(Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim militias fighting in Syria have started returning home to combat a lightning advance by Sunni insurgents in their own country, an exodus that could affect the balance of power in Syria.


The movement demonstrates how intertwined the conflicts in the two neighbouring countries have become, as Sunni and Shi'ite fighters move between them and shifts in battlefield momentum on one side of the border influence the other.


President Bashar al-Assad has relied heavily on Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias from Iraq and Lebanon to help turn the tide against overwhelmingly Sunni rebels.
One of those militias, Iraq's Asaib Ahl al-Haq, an Iranian-backed group which fought U.S. troops during the 2003-2011 occupation, confirmed on Wednesday that it was pulling some of its fighters out of Syria.


Spokesman Ahmed al-Kinani said the group was responding to a call from Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric to protect Iraq from Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who seized Iraq's biggest northern city last week.
"Asaib Ahl al-Haq has withdrawn from Syria and returned to Iraq as both are religious duties to defend our sacred sites. Now they are fighting ISIL together with our security forces."


Estimates of the number of Shi'ite fighters in Syria have run in the thousands. Residents in Jaramana, a Damascus suburb with a heavy presence of government troops backed by foreign militias fighting rebels in the nearby district of eastern Ghouta, say fewer Iraqi fighters have been visible lately.


"We easily differentiate them right away from their accents. You can also hear them down the street when they drive their cars blaring Iraqi Shi'ite music,” said one Jaramana resident.


Read more:


http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/18/uk-iraq-security-syria-fighters-idUKKBN0ET1VB20140618

Turkish media ban on ISIS reports

On June 15, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the media not to write or talk about the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which seized Turkey’s consulate on June 11 in Mosul, in northern Iraq, taking all 49 consulate workers hostage, including the consul general. Erdogan claimed that the media’s reporting puts the hostages’ lives at risk.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/daloglu-media-mosul-hostages-isis-erdogan-iraq-consulate.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter##ixzz351dmAxkv

Walid Shoebat: Prophecy is being fulfilled, the anti-christ is arising as Iran moves into Iraq

When Iraq faded from the collective consciousness and few were paying attention to it we wrote: “Iraq will weaken as a result of America’s exit to simply be devoured by Iran.” (Article by Walid Shoebat written in 2012 for Jewish Voice Ministries)


And now that Iraq is under the radar again as Mosul, Iraq’s SECOND largest city, was besieged by the Sunni Al-Qaeda front (ISIS), a closer attention should be focused on Iran, which just moved into Iraq’s capital, and the FIRST largest city, Baghdad is devoured by Iran. Make no mistake about it; this is prophetically significant.


The Shiites did not standby idle watching Iraq being devoured by Sunnis, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani convened an emergency meeting of the country’s National Security Council to say this:
“We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, will not tolerate this violence and terrorism … We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world.”


And he wasn’t like Obama, simply full of hot air, he sent in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who are already deployed to Iraq and in the name of War on Terror, to help government troops defend (really occupy) the capital city of Baghdad from the escalating threat of Al-Qaeda’s ISIS insurgents which Iranian security sources as well as all the media now confirmed.


The showdown is on, the ISIS has already seized several areas in the northern part of Iraq taking control of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday (June 11), but Revolutionary Guard and Iraqi troops overtook 85 percent of the city of Baghdad on Thursday (June 12).


As the crisis in the Middle East deepens, the Iranian military is also considering shifting troops fighting in Syria and Iraq if the deployment of the Quds Forces is not sufficient to combat the Sunni insurgents.


President Obama responded saying he would not rule out U.S. air strikes against the insurgents and that his government is looking at “all options”, including military action, to help Iraq fight Islamist militants.


Today, the United States is in check and is staggering in confusion, Iran is an enemy, and now since the pull-out of Iraq, the U.S. is all but confused, finding itself with little choices but to look the other way when its arch enemy, Iran, encroaches into Iraq, weighing between an Al-Qaeda takeover to create the Caliphate on the one hand and Iran consuming Iraq on the other. And since we have seen Russia invade Crimea and Obama showed his impotence, Iran has already invaded Iraq’s capital.


Obama said the United States has an interest in making sure jihadists do not gain a foothold in Iraq.


Really? Which Jihadists; Iran or Al-Qaeda?


Its checkmate for the U.S. and prophetically, last year we wrote:


Click to read full article:


http://shoebat.com/2014/06/13/prophecy-fulfilled-antichrist-arising-iran-moves-iraq/

Gary Stearman: The Children of Elam

Who is ISIS & its Leader?

Is ISIS the first terror group to build an Islamic state?



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Who is ISIS & its leader?