Posts

Showing posts from March 10, 2019

Radical Muslims Murder 32 Nigerian Christians, Torch Church in Brutal Attack

Radical Muslims murdered more than 30 Christians in Nigeria last week. This is just the latest account of systematic Islamic violence towards Christ-followers in that country.  The Guardian  reports that Fulani herdsmen assaulted the Christians around 4 a.m. in Karamar village in the Maro district of Kajuru.  The herdsman reportedly set fire to several houses and a church. The terrorists then sporadically shot at families trying to escape the blaze, killing 32 people.  Related Local government officials condemned the vicious attack. "The state government has been assured that the security agencies are working assiduously to contain the situation. The government is saddened by these attacks, condemns the perpetrators and urges all residents of the area to support the security agencies in their efforts to protect communities," said Samuel Aruwan, the senior special assistant to the governor. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) also condemned the deadly assa

New Zealand mosque shooting : Several feared killed in Christchurch, police ask mosques to shut doors

Image
New Zealand mosque shooting Live: Test match between New Zealand and Bangladesh has been cancelled. Players and members of the team's coaching staff were reportedly on their bus, approaching the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Hagley Park when the shooting broke out. FE Online Emergency services personnel transport a stretcher carrying a person at a hospital, after reports that several shots had been fired, in central Christchurch, New Zealand March 15, 2019. (Reuters) New Zealand Christchurch mosque shooting LIVE updates:  Armed police in New Zealand swarmed central Christchurch Friday amid a shooting at a mosque in the South Island city. “A serious and evolving situation is occurring in Christchurch with an active shooter,” police said in a statement. “Police are responding with its full capability to manage the situation, but the risk environment remains extremely high.” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the media saying the attack was an unprecedented act of violence.

IS beheaded 50 Yazidi women, remaining 3000 likely to be sold into sex slave market

Image
It is believed that IS beheaded and buried many of the women they held captive in Eastern Syria this week because the Syrian Democratic Front are closing in on the terrorist group's last strongholds in the region. There was no time to on-sell these captive women into the sex slave market and transporting them while on the run would have been too difficult. The likely fate of the remaining 3000 women held captive by IS, however, is lifetime servitude in the sex slave market -- an income stream IS relies on to stay operational. This week, Yazidi-Australians and their allies demonstrated in Wagga Wagga, Coffs Harbour and Toowoomba as part of simultaneous global protests calling on the UN and governments across the world to help free their sisters, daughters, cousins and friends. Hundreds of people attended the demonstration in Wagga Wagga for which the Yazidi community worked with politicians, the multicultural council, police and other community members. Deputy Prime Minister

How IS is rising in the Philippines as it dwindles in the Middle East

Image
Across the islands of the southern Philippines, the black flag of the Islamic State is flying over what the group considers its East Asia province. Men in the jungle, two oceans away from the arid birthplace of the Islamic State, are taking the terrorist brand name into new battles. As worshippers gathered in January for Sunday Mass at a Catholic cathedral, two bombs ripped through the church compound, killing 23 people. The Islamic State claimed a pair of its suicide bombers had caused the carnage. An illustration circulated days later on Islamic State chat groups, showing President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines kneeling on a pile of skulls and a militant standing over him with a dagger. The caption on the picture sounded a warning: “The fighting has just begun.” The Islamic State’s territory in Iraq and Syria, once the size of Britain, has shriveled after four years of US-backed bombing and ground combat by Kurdish and Shiite militia fighters. What is left is a tiny vi

'We aren't dangerous': Why Chechnya has welcomed women who joined Isis

Image
The handwritten letters addressed to Kheda Saratova often begin with the words: “I’m asking you to find my daughter.” The Chechen human rights advocate has binders filled with photographs of young women and children, as well as their last known locations: Mosul, towns near Raqqa, or sometimes just “tent camp”. Then there are the pleas for help sent over WhatsApp. “We aren’t dangerous,” wrote Maria, a Russian in the Ain Issa refugee camp in  Syria . “Maybe there are some who are dangerous, but we should not all be punished for them.” Altogether, family members have appealed to Saratova to find at least 1,800 Russian-speakers who have disappeared into  Iraq  and Syria, many of whom arrived in the two countries to live under Isis. “We need to hurry or there won’t be anyone left to return,” she said. Women like them have been dubbed “Isis brides” in the west, and their possible return has sparked a fiery public debate, with governments taking unprecedented steps to block their re

UN Expert: Recruitment of Child Soldiers by Extremist Groups Rising

A United Nations expert finds the use of children by violent extremist groups to fight their battles is growing and becoming internationalized. The findings come in a report on Children and Armed Conflict submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, considers children to be the primary victims of war. While children continue to be recruited as soldiers by governments and rebel armed groups, she notes the emergence of several disturbing new trends. Speaking in Geneva, she said the transnational nature of violent extremist groups has seen the emergence of transnational recruitment and involvement of children as foreign fighters. “It is estimated that since 2011, between 30,000 and 42,000 foreign fighters from some 120 countries have travelled to Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic to join groups affiliated with Islamic State and/or al-Qaida. Those numbers include a significant propor

Colombia's Duque to return peace legislation to congress

Image
FILE PHOTO: Colombian President Ivan Duque speaks during a hearing at the Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia March 7, 2019. Courtesy of Colombian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS  - @ Copyright : HANDOUT(Reuters)  BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's President Ivan Duque on Sunday said he objected to several items in legislation implementing a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group and will return the law to congress to be adjusted. In an address to the nation, Duque, who campaigned for president pledging to alter the 2016 agreement, said for "reasons of inconvenience" the government objected to six of the 159 articles in the so-called Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).  The JEP law established a tribunal to investigate, judge and sentence those considered responsible for crimes during a five-decade war with the government. Duque's decision may create problems in the implementation of the agreement that

Jihadist leader killed in Mali French airstrike: army

A top jihadist leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) group, an aide and two civilians have been killed in northeastern Mali by a French airstrike, the French command centre in Paris said on Monday. “Commandos deployed on the ground (after the airstrike) confirmed the death of Mohamed Ag Almouner and one of his bodyguards. They also found the bodies of a woman and a teenager,” an army statement said. Another member of ISGS was wounded, along with two other civilians. The jihadist leader who was killed at an isolated camp in the Menaka region was “a lieutenant to the ISGS chief”, army spokesperson colonel Patrik Steiger told AFP. He added that “the link between the civilians and the jihadist leader is not yet known.” The statement expressed regret at the civilian deaths and said an investigation was under way to determine how they got caught up in the attack. The French operation overnight on Sunday to Monday involved two Mirage 2000 aircraft, followed

ISIL foreign fighters may face death penalty: Iraqi President

BAGHDAD - Reuters Iraqi President Barham Salih said foreign  ISIL  fighters tried in  Iraq  could be handed death sentences, according to an interview published by Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National on March 8. The  ISIL  fighters "will be tried in accordance to Iraqi law and may be sentenced to death if found guilty" of killing Iraqis, the paper quoted Salih as saying on its website. U.S.-backed YPG- Syrian offshoot of the illegal PKK- in Syria handed some 280 Iraqi and foreign suspected  ISIL  members last month,  Iraq 's military said. YPG is listed as a terror organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. More such handovers are expected under an agreement to transfer some 500 detainees held by the YPG. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said  Iraq  would either help repatriate non-Iraqi  ISIL  detainees to their home countries, or prosecute those suspected of having committed crimes against  Iraq  and Iraqis. Under Iraqi law those could face the deat

Belgian court rules that PKK is not a terrorist organisation

A court in Belgium acquitted 36 individuals and companies accused of activities involving the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on the grounds that the group cannot be considered a terrorist organisation, news website Kurdistan24  reported   on Saturday. PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey for self-rule and deemed a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and Europe.  "The Belgian Chamber of Indictment, however, blocked prosecution against all those standing trial in the case, ruling that the conflict involving the PKK in Turkey is an 'internal armed conflict' and, as such, the group cannot be considered a terrorist organization," the news site said. The court ruled that the autonomy-seeking PKK, and its armed wing the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), are non-state actors engaged in a conflict between the organisation and the Turkish state thus the is bound up with international humanitarian laws since it involves the organisation&#

Rehabilitating the Children of ISIS: A Comparative Case Study of Armed Groups and Child Soldier Reintegration | Small Wars Journal

Melanie Lowry Introduction The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) routinely kidnaps, recruits, and employs child soldiers to carry out its operations. In recent years, ISIS possessed major land holdings in Syria and Iraq, and has carried influence on a global scale; however, the overwhelming international military response to ISIS’ brutality has largely driven this terrorist organization out of its formerly held territories. As ISIS members are displaced through battlefield losses, reintegration of former ISIS members remains a key challenge globally. ISIS has frequently used children as a part of its military operations, and hundreds of these children have been indoctrinated into ISIS ideology. The international community now faces a critical issue with the rehabilitation of ISIS children. This population was raised in a hyper-violent environment and has largely never been exposed or integrated into conventional society. As these children and their families flee to non