Christians 'emptied from Middle East'

The mother superior of a 1500-year-old monastery in Syria warned yesterday during a visit to Australia that the uprising against Bashar al-Assad has been hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries.

Mother Agnes-Mariam de la Croix was forced to flee to neighbouring Lebanon in June when she was warned of a plot to abduct her, after she revealed that about 80,000 Christians had been "cleared" by rebel forces from their homes in Homs province.

She described on the website of the Greek-Melkite Catholic monastery of St James, the church she rebuilt 18 years ago after discovering it in ruins, how Islamist rebels had gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya in Homs. Then they blew it up with dynamite and attributed the act to the regular army.

Mother Agnes-Mariam plans to return to Syria soon, to support the Mussalaha (Reconciliation) community-based movement, which rejects sectarian violence and includes, she said, members of all ethnic and religious communities who are tired of war.

Rallies with the theme "Hands Off Syria" are scheduled for lunchtime tomorrow in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart, and will involve a wide variety of groups from the country.

Mother Agnes-Mariam, 60, speaks five languages fluently and spent 22 years as a contemplative Carmelite nun in Lebanon, where she was born. Her late father was a Palestinian refugee who fled Nazareth in 1948 when the state of Israel was established.

She told The Weekend Australian, while visiting Melbourne yesterday - between meetings with Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart and state parliamentarians - that after the uprising began, she had noticed growing numbers of "aggressive, armed gangs which wished to paralyse community life, abducting people, beheading, bringing terror even to schools".

Slowly these groups became identified: some are recruited by and affiliated with al-Qa'ida, some have a Muslim Brotherhood background, some are attached to other Islamist factions. Only about one in 20 of these fighters is Syrian, she said. The rest come from places ranging from Britain to Pakistan, from Chechnya to North Africa. "Many have fought in Iraq, some also in Afghanistan," Mother Agnes-Mariam said. "Now their cause is being recycled to kill Syrians."

The two million Christians in Syria - which contains the world's first church - "are sharing Syria's fate", she said.

"But as a minority, they are more vulnerable. They have no army. They are caught, like the filling in a sandwich."

Her own community of nuns at St James has been mostly trapped in the monastery for 18 months.

In the beginning, she said, the uprising embraced values including freedom and democracy. "But it steadily became a violent Islamist expression against a liberal secular society."

She described "a hidden will to empty the Middle East of its Christian presence. We don't know why. We have always been the peaceful catalyst bringing diverse communities together."

The foreign Islamist threat, she said, "is a terrible one for all the minorities. Do we stay and become second-class citizens? Where do we go? We shouldn't have to accept this in the 21st century."

Mother Agnes-Mariam said some Westerners, "even Christians", were insisting that all Syrians enter dialogue with the Islamist insurgents to form common cause, tolerating the imposition of "a kind of Islamic will" - and criticising her as a controversialist. "But what is happening now is against the uprising," she said. "There is a way to implement the choices of the Syrian people - by giving them back self-determination and freeing them of this massive foreign interference and this media instigation for violence.

"There are powerful seeds inside the Syrian people for reform through dialogue and negotiation."

Zainab.News.Network (this has been run through google translate)

"This story is only a sample of what is happening in areas that fall to terrorist elements before liberate the Syrian Arab army"

Root Girl Syria testimony about being raped by gangs Free Army at the sight of her mother, she was under attack, you hear laughter and tasted the worst forms of oppression can be any girl should know.

The girl said in testimony: we sealers are all in the arena near our homes, as well as the children who were crying in fear and panic, but men who were complaining their they are with the Syrian regime has been transferred to unknown places and definitely been liquidated.

We were screaming Mstgathat, Mraobac, "Dkhalkn" .. Screams .. Howling and crying children, I was shaking from the intensity of terror, Thirty people, but the beast, the bodies of huge scary, and the faces and glances flying them sparks, and beards long, they were heavily armed and knives, they took the women and Ibteken sealers with children, and be Istgtn "Bardkn."

Kept us we girls in the arena, the concert began my I, unpack them and monster Thaqi, resisted, attracted me by the hair and pushed me to the ground the vertical فارتطم, and when I screamed I heard my mother's voice screaming from afar "AAA .. AAA ... Let her alone, this little girl, haram, its future, take me, please ".

Mom and women screaming, their voices rose in tears and wailing .. And pray, O Lord, for your kindness, was Asrakhhen raises monsters, increasing laughter and Hrasthm.

I on the ground I saw three faces approaching me laugh Chamth Mgahgahh, supported became messing me in seconds and found myself naked, tried to resist, you resist and flinch Caldjajh before slaughtering, arms many spread to my body shields octopus Tatsrna, I felt the attack brutal on my body which استكان, thrice quiet, paralyzed.

I felt suffocated and putrid smell like a dead smell emanating from their bodies disgusting, were cruelly Atsaihon "PDC system, system Hi! PDC Bashar al-Assad, Hi Bashar Assad!!

Another monster began to beat me on my face and my body, fiercely Alkmena, and stomps his feet Alhaúlten on my chest, I feel Bazami Ttqtq under his shoes, stings of fire over my body.

Mom, I still hear her cries, hit one of them .. (Shut up, O Umm .....).

Rotation on my body Elmejrouh ten human monsters, took turns in Amthana and tortured.

I no longer hear the sound of my mother, and Baltvafah me during a trip rape found dumped مضرجة RVF, has cut her neck with the other women and children, killed them all.

I was not the only girl at the party .. There were others .. Tortured and murdered as well.

Someone wanted to fleece neck as they did with the others, the voice behind him said: let not you see almost dead, it's hard to breathe, yes you barely breathe, they broke Odilai under intercourse with their feet over my body.

After they have had murder and oppression, rape, bodily dragged to the trash container to die there, (in the rubbish bin where you are here, ....).

Over time after that, not fast, I was naked wounded, barely breathe, and I feel cold and emptiness.

Endless tragedy بعثور security elements on them, and although they heard their words, "God does not forgive the heck revolution country and Saudi Arabia ... It's alive", but they preferred to lose consciousness after he left tenderness that I heard in the voice of the soldier Syrian "Allahu Akbar them," left In the case of madness procedure does not give them the ability to face her body naked eyes.

The girl is now out of Syria, and testified about what happened to her after that for days and days spent crying on her soul and her dreams and homeland which Dnsth revolution Adnan Aeraour and the ruler of Qatar, Abdullah and Erdogan.

Says "I did not on my own, there was a group of girls who have been twice raped, and I knew that there provides us with support and assistance, but this did not reduce the weight of invalids and I feel scared, I feel that I will lose my mind one day, was تنتابني bouts of anger, Vibki and scream : Where am I now? Where are you, Dad? Where are you, my mother? Brothers? My family? ".

This is a simple example of jihad that they are doing in the name of religion, this is the revolution in Syria!!!

***Mother Agnes-Mariam, 60, speaks five languages fluently and spent 22 years as a contemplative Carmelite nun in Lebanon, where she was born. Her late father was a Palestinian refugee who fled Nazareth in 1948 when the state of Israel was established.***

Take note. Christians have been persecuted in the middle east by all sides, and in the west they’ve been betrayed by all sides. The Islamist Obama policy has been no more devastating than the neocons of the Bush years. No one at FR gave a flip about Christians in the middle east, or even recognized their existence, till Obama was in the WH. It is still politically incorrect in neocon circles to mention the daily contempt and abuse suffered by Christians in Israel, or the vandalism visited there on their holy places.

Yes, it’s worse for Christians in Islamic countries. But the fact that we turn a blind eye when the persecution comes from our supposed friends sends a loud and clear message that America cares nothing for middle eastern Christians and hasn’t for 70 years.

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