Posted on 07/25/2012 8:18:23 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
The country's minority Christian population suffers under attacks by rebel troops. In the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, Christian families find temporary refuge, but they are still terrified.
There had been many warnings that the Khouri family wouldn't talk. "They won't say a word -- they're too scared," predicted the mayor of Qa where the Khouris are staying. "They won't even open their door for journalists," said another person.
Somehow, though, the interview was arranged in the end. Reserved and halting, the women described what happened to their husbands, brothers and nephews back in their hometown of Qusayr. They were killed by Syrian rebel fighters, the women said -- murdered because they were Christians, people who in the eyes of radical Islamist freedom fighters have no place in the new Syria.
Some factions within the Free Syrian Army have radicalized at a very rapid clip in recent months. A few are even being influenced by foreign jihadists who have traveled to Syria to advise them. Currently, fighters with the Free Syrian Army have the upper hand, and have made the city of 40,000 residents a place where the country's Christians no longer feel safe.
Campaigns against Christians
"We're too frightened to talk," her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. "Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us," she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. "They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away," she says. "We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed."
Grandmother Leila made the sign of the cross. "Anyone who believes in this cross suffers," she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Come to America. PLEASE! We need you HERE!
You know theTruth about Islam.
Even a civil war doesn't distract the islamists from their religion of death.
Simply put, an islamic population can’t be trusted with democracy.
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