Free Republic

Assad’s cleverly crafted narrative has for years gained acceptance from some DC policymakers, religious freedom communities, and Christian activists that my organization, In Defense of Christians, operates among. That is, he portrays himself as the protector of Syria’s Christians and other religious minorities, such as the Druzes, Yezidis, and his own Alawites, to name a few. In the face of the Islamic State scourge and many other Islamist rebels who despise Christians and other minorities, Assad was right. Christians were better off living in government-controlled areas and have stuck by, reluctantly, to his regime. But the narrative has quickly crumbled...

The battle for "Islamic State" stronghold Raqqa has reached its final stages, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed multi-ethnic alliance fighting IS. Karlos Zurutuza reports from Raqqa.Getting to the headquarters of Syriac fighters in Raqqa involves driving mostly across a desert. The route is exhausting and not entirely safe but, for the time being, it's the only chance to avoid the area still under the control of the Islamic State (IS). Once in the south western outskirts of the city, you just have to follow your ear: the base of the Syriac Military Council (MFS) is right next...

The battle for 'Islamic State' stronghold Raqqa has reached its final stages, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed multi-ethnic alliance fighting IS. Karlos Zurutuza reports from Raqqa. At 22, Hannah has generously paid for his rank with a lost kidney, the scar that criss-crosses his chest and a bullet in the head which only grazed him. That didn't happen in Raqqa though, but in his native town of Qamishli - 600 kilometers (370 miles) northeast of Damascus - back in 2015. The enemy, however, was the same. Pre-war censuses in Syria placed the number of Syriac Christians at...

Syrian Christians hold up a sign begging for others to save Christians in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) Editor's Note: The following was adapted from an address delivered by the Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch to the 134th Convention of the Knights of Columbus. __________ On the night of August 6-7, 2014, one hundred fifty thousand people—some 40 percent of all Christians still living in Iraq—were driven from their ancestral communities. They had nowhere to flee except nearby Kurdistan. Two years have passed since that catastrophic eradication, and still there is no real solution. In Mosul...

Hundreds of Assyrian families, some of them recently arrived from Islamic Statecontrolled areas of Syria, attend Easter Sunday service at St. Georges Assyrian Church ofhe East in Sed El Baouchrieh, a working class suburb of Beirut. Non-Muslim Syrian refugees have been virtually locked out by the Obama administration, according to current data from the State Department.According to the Refugee Processing Center, of the 6,877 Syrian refugees that have arrived in 2016 through July 31st, 6,834 of those are identified as Sunni, Shia, or generic Muslim. Only 43 (0.7 percent of total) refugees admitted have been non-Muslim.That 0.7 percent of refugees...

- Russian submarine strikes - International concern over the conflict has grown with the emergence of IS as a major threat, after it seized large parts of Syria and Iraq and carried out operations abroad including last month's Paris attacks. The jihadists have also kidnapped hundreds of people, including more than 200 members of Syria's Assyrian Christian minority in the northeast province of Hasakeh in February. On Wednesday, IS freed 25 Assyrian captives, including two children, the Assyrian Human Rights Network said. Up to 125 hostages are believed to still be held after successive releases. A US-led coalition launched air...

Christian leaders in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, captured by an organization formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, have signed a submission document this week banning them from practicing Christianity in public in return for protection by their Islamist rulers. The document, dated Sunday and disseminated through Islamist Twitter accounts, states that the Christian community in the province of Raqqa, captured last March by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), was recently given three options: to convert to Islam; to remain Christian but pledge submission to Islam; or to “face the sword.” They opted for the second of...

Threatened by al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists, community in northern city of Raqqa chooses ‘dhimmitude’ over conversion or death

The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army — those are the “moderates,” you know. How moderate? This moderate: in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village...

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill. The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have...

The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist extremists are biblical in their brutality. But they are emerging as part of a concerted push by Syrian Christians to get the U.S. to stop its support for rebel groups fighting Syrian president Bashar al Assad. “The US must change its politics and must choose the way of diplomacy and dialogue, not supporting rebels and calling them freedom fighters,” says Nalbandian. Given the United States’ increased support for non-terrorist rebel groups in the wake of the Assad regime’s use...

A video recently appeared of an Islamic Sunni cleric in Syria inciting Muslim schoolboys, most of whom appear  to be between the ages of five-twelve, to hate and kill Christians and others.According to a report in Arabic (scroll down for video), among other things, the sheikh calls on the children to “slaughter all Christians for being infidels” and that he boasted that “the Christians of Syria are under continuous attack and their churches and monasteries subject to violence.”In the video, the sheikh first talks of Islam’s egalitarianism—that it does not consider the race, nationality, or language of people, only whether they have submitted to Islam...

Moscow, October 16, Interfax - A group of Syrian Christians have applied for Russian citizenship, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. "Since Syrian law allows dual citizenship, we have decided to seek citizenship of the Russian Federation if this is possible. Russian citizenship would be an honor for any Syrian Christian who wished to acquire it," the group said in a letter to the Russian Foreign Ministry. A Russian translation of the Arabic text of letter is posted on the ministry's website. "Our appeal does not mean that we have any mistrust in the Syrian army or government. However, we...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - “Where Is President Obama to See What Has Befallen Us?” Ethnically Cleansed Syrian Christian AsksPosted By Daniel Greenfield On September 8, 2013 @ 5:22 pm In The Point | 8 Comments He should probably try the golf courses. It’s usually the most reliable place to find him. Finding Obama’s conscience however is a hopeless task. The battle over Maaloula, an ancient village that is home to two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria, has thrown a spotlight on the deep-seated fears that many of Syria’s religious minorities harbor about the growing role of...

<p>They fled from the bitter conflict because they fear the rebels yet can expect no assistance from Assad. Now many of Syria's Christians are stranded in Lebanon, and are answering the call of the Pope by praying for their country -- and that the US military intervention does not come.</p>

Tens of thousands Syriac Christians – members of the oldest Christian community in the world – have fled their ancestral provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasakah in northeastern Syria, residents have said. "It breaks my heart to think how our long history is being uprooted," said Ishow Goriye, the head of a Syriac Christian political Hasakah. Mr Goriye, told The Daily Telegraph how, over the past two years he has watched as Christian families from Hasakah pack their possessions on the rooftops of their vehicles and flee their homes "with little plan to come back". Conflict in the area, desperate...

before the civil war the city of Qusayr, located in eastern portion of Syria near the Lebanese border, had around 40,000 people, including 7,000 Christians. “In late 2011, the Sunni townsmen came and told us to either join us in anti-regime demonstrations or leave the town. If we didn’t, we would be killed,” Fadul Abu Yohanna Kasouhah, a Christian resident of Qusayr, described to CSI. According to Fadul, the Sunni Islamists in his village used the loudspeakers from the Mosques to name the Christian families by name and told them to leave. Fadul told CSI how his cousin was gunned...

Middle Eastern Christians decry how Western media misrepresent the increasingly violent events in Syria.Now that Syria is in shambles—with an estimated 93,000 dead, 1.5 million refugees, and 4.5 million internally displaced; ancient churches torched, destroyed, or vandalized; Christians targeted for murder and kidnapping and even used as human shields—now the mainstream media is starting to admit that, yes, the rebel forces appear to include quite a few Islamist guerrillas. Now that even chemical warfare has made its appearance, with Carla Del Ponte, a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, confirming that “the chemical weapons are being used...

A recently released video of an interview with a Syrian rebel — and would-be-martyr – gives extraordinary insight into the mentality of the Syrian opposition. Believing that he’s speaking to European jihadist volunteers, the rebel says that Christians must be killed to impose a Sharia state in Syria, after which they will be given the classic choice: pay the jizya, convert or die. He also says that the rebels intend to move on from Syria to attack Europe and America.Similarly, another rebel clearly explains that Islam must be the sole source of authority of the future Syrian state.  In the meantime,...

(AINA) -- Syria's Christians fear an Islamist takeover should the current government be overthrown. During the ongoing civil war there has been a well-documented rise in the number of salafi-jihadist groups operating in Syria that pose a direct threat to Syria's Christian community.1 These militant opposition forces espouse an Islamist ideology, which incorporates elements of Wahhabism2 and Salafism3 and whose stated goals and objectives are by definition hostile towards Christians. Firsthand accounts from Syrian Christian refugees in Lebanon reported by award winning investigative journalist Nuri Kino detail the horror in which they described kidnappings, rapes, harassment, theft and other violent...