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Several dead after Al Qaeda-linked militants bomb cathedral in Philippines
Catholic News Agency ^ | Apr 15, 2010
Posted on April 15, 2010 6:22:53 AM PDT by Petrosius
Manila, Philippines, Apr 15, 2010 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Abu Sayyaf militants conducted a bombing assault on Isabela City in the Philippines on Tuesday morning, killing several people and severely damaging the Cathedral of St. Isabel. The local bishop said the cathedral was “totally” damaged.
At least 25 militants with the Al Qaeda-linked group, dressed in police and camouflaged military uniforms, set off two bombs that blew up a van and damaged the 40-year-old cathedral. A third bomb placed near a judge’s house and a bus terminal was safely detonated by soldiers.
It was the worst attack by the group in months, Agence France Presse reports. The attacks started gun battles around the city as militants targeted helpless civilians.
City mayor Cherry Akbar initially told reporters that at least 15 people were killed in the violence, including five militants who apparently died in the first blast. The dead also included three Philippine Marines, a policeman and six civilians. The death toll was later revised downward to 14.
One of the dead was identified as a brother of Furuju Indama, a top Abu Sayyaf leader on the island of Basil.
Catholics are a minority in Basilan province. Responding to the attacks, Bishop Martin S. Jumoad of the Prelature of Isabela said the cathedral was “totally damaged” because its posts were weakened by the blast, CBCP News says.
“I am very, very sad the House of the Lord has been destroyed,” he added.
The 53-year-old prelate said he does not know how to rebuild the cathedral, constructed in 1970 with a capacity for 1,400 worshipers.
Philippines authorities said policemen and two Marine personnel responded to the first explosion at 9:30 a.m. at the Grandstand near the Basilan National High School but were fired upon by armed men.
A second explosion took place at about 10:30 a.m. in the vicinity of the cathedral and the city plaza. The improvised explosive device was placed in a motorcycle.
The blasts shattered the cathedral’s stained glass windows and damaged the priests’ rectory. Several priests’ service vehicles were also destroyed.
Regional military chief Lieutenant General Ben Dolorfino said military intelligence had received reports of an impending attack, but not its details, AFP says.
“They were planning something big. This was well planned and apparently they were well funded.”
Authorities suspect that politicians who hired mercenaries may have been behind the attacks.
“There were indications that the Abu Sayyaf was being used to sow violence, it was not pure terrorism,” said Senior Supt. Antonio Mendoza, Basilan police chief.
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MUSLIM EGYPTIAN GIRL WHO CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY SUBJECTED TO ACID ATTACK
ASSIST NEWS SERVICE ^ | Friday, April 16, 2010 | by dan Wooding
Posted on April 18, 2010 12:54:47 AM PDT by Cindy
Note: Photos included.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Muslim Egyptian Girl Who Converted to Christianity Subjected to Acid Attack
By Dan Wooding Founder of ASSIST Ministries
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT (ANS) — The Assyrian International News Agency (www.aina.org), is reporting the shocking news that Dina el-Gowhary, a 15-year-old Egyptian Muslim-born girl who converted to Christianity, has been subjected to an acid attack, the latest in a string of failed attempts by Muslim fanatics against her and her father, 57-year-old Peter Athanasius (Maher el-Gowhary), who converted to Christianity 35 years ago.
In a story written by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, several Fatwa’s were issued calling for the “spilling of his blood,” which makes their lives in constant danger in the face of the reactionaries and advocates for the enforcement of Islamic apostasy laws, which call for the death of a convert.
According to Abdelmassih, Dina said that three weeks ago, as she ventured out from their hiding place in Alexandria with her father to get some bottled water, her jacket was set on fire due to acid being thrown at her.
“My father quickly took my jacket off before the fire reached my arms,” she said. “Ever since then I am terrorized to go out in the street, with or without my father.”
Through an aired interview with Free Copts advocacy, Abdelmassih said that Dina had addressed an open letter to President Mubarak of Egypt begging him to “save her and her father” and also be allowed to “leave Egypt”.
Dina said that she had written previously to U.S. President Barrack Obama, who “got her message and responded to it”.
It was reported that the el-Gowhary’s met with the US Committee on International Religious Freedom on their last visit to Egypt in January 2010, and that they asked for asylum in the United States.
Dina said that she wonders whether she will get the same attention from President Mubarak as she did from President Obama.
“Will he listen and lend us a helping hand, if, as they claim, he truly does not differentiate between Muslim and Christian citizens?” she pondered.
Dina asked the Egyptian President, who newly became grandfather to a baby girl, “Do you accept that your granddaughter would live under the same conditions like mine? I have no home, I am always afraid when I go to church or even go out in the street, I have no friends and no education.”
Abdelmassih said that in her letter to President Mubarak, Dina expressed her “deep distress at the mistreatment and continuous troubles she finds everywhere she goes, including being beaten and humiliated.”
She tells of how “because of her love for Jesus” she left her Muslim mother and went to live with her Christian father, abandoning school where she was persecuted by teachers and students.
“I was threatened many times before. Once coming back from school, a bearded young man stepped out of a car, lifted me through my clothes from the ground and warned me that if my father and myself do not go back to Islam, both of us will be killed.”
Dina, now living with her father for the last two years, has to move with him “from one place to another in search of personal safety for both, in the face of the many threats that they experienced since her father declared his conversion to Christianity and his desire to his change religious designation in official documents.”
Abdelmassih went on to say that in June 2009, a Court refused his request to order the Civil Registry to alter his religious designation on his ID to reflect his Christian religion and his Christian name, Peter Athanasius. The Court ruling said that the religious conversion of a Muslim is against Islamic Sharia law and poses a threat to the “Public Order” in Egypt. He appealed the Court ruling.
In the Free Copts interview, Dina said that she hopes that President Mubarak will help them to leave Egypt in order for them to live normally and for her to continue her education.
The el-Gowhary family was barred from leaving Egypt on September 17, 2009 “without any legal reason” said the writer. “They were told, however, that the order came from a higher authority. To this today, says Maher, he does not know why he is barred from travel and which authority exactly is barring him.”
He explained, in a interview with Free Copts this week, the extremely difficult circumstances they are living under, being hunted the whole time and with many attempts on their lives. “It is only due to the Grace and Protection of God, that we are still alive until today,” he adds.
“Why did they confiscate our passports? What have we done wrong?” said Dina. “The only thing we did is that we loved Jesus with all their hearts and converted to Christianity.” The teenage girl stressed that whatever the government does or will to them to force them to abandon Christianity is in vain.
“We will never leave Christianity and we will never ever revert back to Islam. Jesus is simply etched in our hearts,” she said.
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