EXTREMISTS occupying large swaths of Iraq and Syria have issued a threat to Iraqi Christians in the city of Mosul to accept Islam, pay extra taxes to Islamic Sharia courts or face death.
The letters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, were distributed recently to leaders of the dwindling Christian minority in Iraq’s second largest city.
The message added that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has agreed to allow Christians who do fail to convert or pay extra taxes to leave the embattled city by noon Saturday. After that, the message said, “the only option is the sword.”
According to Mark Ellis in Godreports, an online journal, a report received by Christian Aid Mission from a ministry partner working in Mosul that has established churches and converted many quoted a Christian as saying:
“Please pray for us. We are scared. Last night they came in our church building and started breaking everything they saw,” the email to Christian Aid stated.
The ISIS invaders were bent on destruction. “They took our pulpit down and removed the cross. Then they threw gasoline on it and burned everything.”
Christians who hid in the basement were forced out by fire. “We had to go out because of the smoke. As we started running out they saw us and started shooting at us. Some did not make it, but those who did ran in all directions.
“Most of those who attended the meeting are Muslim background believers. Please pray for us. We don´t have a place to go to and we don´t know what to do.”
The ministry reported that ISIS militants passed out leaflets stating that sharia law was now in effect. The leaflets mandated that all citizens pray five times a day, it stated that the hands of thieves will be amputated, and women should not walk the streets except in an emergency. If women go out in the streets, they must be fully covered.
ISIS militants want to create an Islamic caliphate that encompasses territory in Iraq and Syria, and from there launch a global holy war.
The ISIS fighters are considered more brutal and bloody than al Queda. “They believe killing gets them into heaven quicker,” one observer noted.
Recent events point to the possibility that Iraq will eventually be carved into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish-controlled territories.
In the midst of this turmoil, some Christians are fleeing to Kurdistan, where there is more religious freedom.
Before 2003, Mosul had a significant Christian population of some 130,000 people. Since then the number has dwindled to a reported 10,000 due to frequent attacks on Christian homes, businesses, and churches. The city may soon be emptied of nearly all Christians now that ISIS militants have taken full control, according to Christian Aid Mission.
Another ministry partner of Christian Aid also reported on the desperate conditions in Mosul. Not long after ISIS arrived, “the Islamic militias started burning churches and killing Christians and Shiites,” his email stated.
“I have already talked with the church members in Mosul. They shut down the church, and all Christians left their homes and are fleeing to Erbil, along with thousands of Mosul residents,” he reported.
Militant ISIS jihadists, a Sunni-dominated al Qaeda splinter group, have overrun large parts of Iraq and neighbouring war torn Syria over the past months in a violent Islamist insurgency. The militants want to establish an Islamic state, or so-called caliphate, across Sunni areas of both countries.
ISIS already controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It has ignored international borders, establishing a deadly presence from Syria’s Mediterranean coast all the way south to Baghdad, making its goal of a caliphate state seemingly within reach.
The magnitude of the crisis is clear from the sharp rise in the death toll over the past two months.
At least 2,400 Iraqis died in violence in June, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. Of those, the United Nations said more than 1,500 were civilians, including 270 civilian police officers, and almost 900 were members of Iraqi security forces.
No comments:
Post a Comment