Somali Christians and Missionaries Murdered

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (ANS) -- Several Christians and Westerners have been killed in violent attacks as anti-Christian violence spreads throughout the mainly Islamic, impoverished African nation, Barnabas Fund said Friday Dec. 19.

The Barnabas Fund, which supports Christians in the Islamic world, identified Italian nun Annalena Tonneli, known as the Mother Theresa of Africa, as among those Christians murdered in recent weeks along with several other missionary workers.

Sister Tonneli, who had served in Somalia for thirty years "founding a TB hospital, orphanages and schools," was killed October 5 by two armed men in front of the hospital, said Barnabas Fund in a statement seen by ASSIST News Service (ANS).

Soon after British couple Richard and Enid Eyeington, working for SOS Children's villages in Somaliland were shot dead October 20 by several gunmen in their home inside the school compound, while watching television, added the organization.

Last month a Kenyan Christian working for the Seventh Day Adventist mission in Gedo, South West Somalia, was reportedly murdered by Islamist radicals, although no more details were given.

The Barnabas Fund said "the attacks appear to be deliberately anti-Christian and anti-Western," and are likely linked to radical Somali Islamist group, Kulanka Culimada, which threatened with violence earlier this year.

This Mogadishu based group urged its supporters to treat all Somali Christians "as apostates from Islam who ought to be killed," after a tiny persecuted Christian community in Somalia sent several delegates to peace talks currently held in Nairobi.

The Christians had demanded the right of freedom of religion and assembly, political representation, and free movement, said Barnabas Fund, which has close contacts with church sources insight the country.

Christian representatives were reportedly "shouted down by Muslim delegates who insisted Somalia had no Christians and who declared Islam to be the official religion of Somalia."

Barnabas Fund said the verbal abuse "seems to mirror prejudices widely held by Muslim Somalis which justify violence against Christians, both indigenous and expatriate."

Complicating the situation is violence between different clans of war lords in the divided nation with reports that at least 60 people were killed and another 90 wounded in renewed fighting this week in the northwest part of Somalia's Galgadud Region.

Over 99 percent of the single party republic's six million people are Muslims, and analysts say many regard Christianity as a foreign religion of their historic enemies in Ethiopia and their former colonial masters, Italy and the Britain.

Aid and mission work by Christian bodies in the colonial period resulted in a tiny Christian community of up to one thousand people, mainly in the south.

Church property and institutions were nationalized in 1972 and all mission work was stopped in 1974. "Many Christian Somalis have fled abroad as a result of the wars, chaos, civil strife and instability which followed the collapse of Somalia in 1991," said Barnabas Fund, a situation which apparently continued following the withdrawal of American forces in 1994.

Christian churches have been driven underground because of persecution and a number of believers have been imprisoned and martyred over the years, human rights organizations say.

"Evangelism is prohibited, and believers worship on Friday to avoid association with foreign Christianity. Most church buildings have collapsed and are in ruins," said Barnabas Fund which has often urged Christians around the world to pray for persecuted believers.

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Killing the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim.

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Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans

Published in Al-Quds al-'Arabi on Febuary 23, 1998

Statement signed by Sheikh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Abu- Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh

Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders." The Arabian Peninsula has never--since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas--been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies now spreading in it like locusts, consuming its riches and destroying its plantations. All this is happening at a time when nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.

The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al- Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said "As for the militant struggle, it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."

On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed--women and children, whose cry is 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty God said "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."

Almighty God also says "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

Almighty God also says "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

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