Crucified by the Caliphate: Iraq descends into disarray

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 08/10/2014 - 15:33

They arrived bristling with heavy weapons and waving black flags from about a dozen Humvees, seized from the Iraqi army and supplied originally by the United States.

When the terrified residents looked out of their windows, they saw that Kosho, their traditional walled village in the mountains of northern Iraq, had been surrounded by jihadists. More than 200 bearded militants had besieged the village.

"Death toll between both sides in Gaza will never be overlooked"

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 08/09/2014 - 14:16

A draw was the result of the Hamas-Israeli first round of mini-wars that lasted for 28 days. Hamas failed to force Israel to end the blockade imposed on Gaza. Israel also failed to bomb Hamas into total surrender and demilitarization. The Cairo talks are following the same paradigm of the Paris talks, leading to nowhere, and its decisions are abiding to nobody, forcing both sides to a regressive position of a status quo ante.

Iraq's Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako: A voice in the desert

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 08/08/2014 - 22:55

"It is time to take a principled stand: the situation calls for concrete action, a gesture of solidarity in the face of an existential crisis—‘we will either be or will not be.’”

It is an angry condemnation of an indifferent world. The words are unpolished and bitter. They exude disillusionment; they reject a world obsessed with consumption, in awe of comfort, blind to evil and deaf to the cry of the innocent. "In fact, speeches are good for nothing, so too declarations that rehash condemnations and indignation; the same can be said for protest marches."

The story of a Chaldean priest who was forced to flee Qaraqosh

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 08/08/2014 - 22:46

Fr. Paolo Thabit Mekko, the Iraqi Chaldean priest of Qaraqosh, had spent the past few months reopening wells and getting electricity generators going for refugees that fled Mosul after Iraq’s second major city fell into the hands of ISIS jihadists. Now, he too finds himself living the life of a refugee, along with the thousands of fugitives who were expelled from the Nineveh Plain and scattered in streets, churches and across the majority Christian Ankawa suburb of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

World ignores Christian exodus from Islamic world

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 08/07/2014 - 23:48

While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and Hamas—and while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to survive amid a sea of Arab-Islamic hostility—similar or worse tragedies continue to go virtually ignored.

One of the most ancient Christian communities in the world, that of Iraq—which already had been decimated over the last decade, by Islamic forces unleashed after the ousting of Saddam Hussein—has now been wiped out entirely by the new "caliphate," the so-called Islamic State, formerly known by the acronym "ISIS."

Iraqi Christians in Lebanon tell of ISIS' brutal rule

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 08/07/2014 - 23:10

The brothers arrived from Erbil on July 21 after being driven from Mosul along with thousands of other Christian families that the "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) had forced to choose between exile, conversion to Islam or death by sword.

They are now living in an apartment in Sad al-Bouchrieh provided by Father George Youkhana, rector of St. George Assyrian Church of the East, as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives.

'Slowly the Egyptian Copts rise up'

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 08/07/2014 - 21:08

After three years of hard times consequence of political turmoil born at Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Coptic community seems to raise its head. Following an uneasy coexistence with the Muslim Brotherhood, the handing of power to General Al Sissi brings about hope. It seems that many have converted to Christianity, the figures however remaining unknown.Among the Iraqis compelled to quit Mosul under pressure by blood-thirsty jihadists of Islamic Caliphates, it is likely that some of them may dream of the Coptic Church, still on its feet despite all the dark years.

“Caliphate” expels Christians from the Nineveh Plain

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 08/07/2014 - 20:59

After capturing Mosul, jihadist Islamic State militants have now also taken hold of the villages in the Nineveh Plain which had been historical strongholds of local Christian communities in ancient Mesopotamia since time immemorial. Last night in Qaraqosh, Kramles, Talkief, Bartalla and other central areas, the Islamic Caliphate offensive crushed all resistance from the Peshmerga Kurds and the regular army serving the Kurdistan Regional Government.