A jihadist held a group of Sydney, Australia residents hostage for 16 hours before police stormed the building and freed them.
The raid took place just before 2:30 a.m. local time at the Lindt Chocolate Café. A terrorist named Man Haron Monis, an Iranian who had sent hate mail to the families of fallen soldiers, has been identified as the jihadist.
The terrorist and at least one other person are dead. Paramedics took four hostages from the café and sources say that three are in critical condition.
The gunman had forced the hostages to stand in front of the store’s windows with their hands pressed against them. A few hours into the incident he placed a jihadist flag in the café window.
Australia’s Network Ten reported that Monis was armed with a shotgun and a machete. He demanded to speak directly to Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Monis emigrated to Australia in 1996 and was known for his extremist views.
A Texas teenager is on trial after he beat, mutilated and killed a classmate in a satanic ritual.
Jose Reyes, 18, is facing a life sentence for the murder of Coriann Cervantes. The two attended Clear Path Alternative School in League City, TX.
Reyes invited Cervantes to an abandoned apartment in Houston for drinking and smoking marijuana along with Reyes friend Victor Alias. The two men then decided to use the 15-year-old girl for a sacrifice in a satanic ritual.
They beat the girl with the lid of a toilet tank and then stabbed her with a screwdriver before carving an upside down cross on her stomach. The two then proceeded to commit further mutilation of the body in connection with the ritual.
“They discussed the fact that Mr. Reyes had sold his soul to the devil, and if they ended up killing this teenager, that would also allow the 16-year-old to also sell his soul to the devil,” Assistant Harris County District Attorney John Jordan told reporters. “The teenager screamed, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ During that time, they stopped her. It became a kidnapping and, ultimately, she was killed.”
“What happened in that vacant apartment was sadistic,” Jordan said. “What will eventually happen in the… courtroom will be justice.”
A homicide bomber walked into an auditorium in Kabul, Afghanistan and set off his device killing a German man and wounding 16 people.
The crowd was watching a play that condemned terrorist homicide bombing attacks called “Heartbeat: Silence After the Explosion.” The head of the Interior Ministry said a 17-year-old boy walked into the play during an early evening performance to commit the attack.
“I heard a deafening explosion … There were Afghans, foreigners, young girls and young boys watching the show,” Sher Ahmad, an Afghan rights activist who was at the performance, told Reuters.
The Taliban said that they attacked the play because it was aimed “to insult Islamic values and spread propaganda about our jihad operations, especially on suicide attacks”.
The attack is the second homicide bombing terrorist attack in Kabul within a week. Six Afghani soldiers were killed when a terrorist hit their bus as they were heading to work.
The attacks are part of a nationwide campaign by the Taliban to strike at military and civilians, as most of the foreign military units would be leaving the country by the end of the month.
Officials are praising the fact only four people lost their lives from Typhoon Hagupit.
Over a million residents of the Philippines were evacuated ahead of the storm as officials put into place protocols created after the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan.
“We saw that with preparation and being alert we prevented tragedy and harm, we took our countrymen away from harm,” added Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas. “It is sad to hear news of deaths, but this is very low, way below what the potential was.”
Gwendolyn Pang, the secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, said that it’s obvious people learned lessons and put them into practice.
Over 7,300 people were confirmed dead or are still missing from 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan.
Jipapad mayor Delia Monleon revealed that floodwaters are preventing people from getting to their homes.
“Our problem is power, food is a problem because boats cannot leave,” Monleon told Christian Post. “It was flooded yesterday so we can’t leave to look for food.”
The already strained relationship between Israel and Palestine grew further apart after the death of a Palestinian official who clashed with Israel Defense Forces.
An Israeli pathologist is joining with a team from Jordan to conduct the autopsy of Ziad Abu Ein, who died while en route to a hospital Wednesday after being struck in the chest with what is believed to be a tear gas canister.
Abu Ein headed the PA government agency that campaigns against security barriers and settlements. He fought with Israeli Defense Forces near Turmusaya in the northern West Bank. Palestinians claimed he was hit by the rifle butt of a soldier but Israeli witnesses say that he was not hit by a soldier.
The IDF says that 200 rioters were attempting to enter a Palestinian settlement and were being led by Abu Ein.
Abu Ein was extradited from the U.S. to Israel in 1981 for his connection to a 1979 terrorist bombing.
Islamic terrorists have killed a pastor from South Africa who felt a passion to help the Afghani people after the United States removed the Taliban.
Three terrorists with explosives on their chest stormed into the compound where Pastor Werner Geoenewald and his family have been living. The explosion killed Werner and his two children Jean-Pierre and Rode. The fire also destroyed all the family’s belongings leaving the mother Hannelie alone.
The children were 17 and 15. Hannelie survived because she had been working a nearby clinic at the time of the attack.
“Their house was burned down,” Hannelie’s sister Riana Du Plessis said on Sunday from South Africa. “Hannelie went back there this morning to try to recover some of their goods, but there was nothing to recover. She lost everything – her children, her husband, her cats, her dogs.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders saying they were out to kill Christians.
An American journalist that Al-Qaeda threatened to kill Saturday died during a rescue attempt by U.S. led forces.
U.S. Special Forces discovered the location where the Islamic terrorists were holding Luke Somers, 33, and a South African hostage, Pierre Korkie, 56, in the village of Dafaar. The raid just after midnight also left 13 terrorists dead.
Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula has been establishing itself in Yemen and has been gaining support among Sunnis in the nation.
The group has also been publicly denouncing ISIS but intelligence officials say that the groups are quietly working together behind the scenes. The group has two other western hostages that they are reportedly demanding cash ransom for their release.
Compounding the tragedy are reports from South Africa that the terrorists had agreed to release Korkie on Sunday, the day after the failed raid. The family said they hold no ill will toward the U.S. for their loved one’s death and said they “choose to forgive. We choose to love.”
Officials in Borno State are reporting a massacre over the weekend in the Christian town of Shani carried out by Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
The communications with the town were cut off during the attack and officials say they are just now learning the scope of the attack.
A resident of the town told the Nigerian Daily Post that Boko Haram descended on the town around 8 p.m. local time on Saturday.
“They came on about 10 motorcycles from Gwaskara axis, well armed with Ak47 rifles, improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs, wrecking havoc without confrontation as there was no military operatives, nor police to assist the armless civilians who were running for dear lives,” the witness said.
The witness said at least two dozen people were killed and many businesses looted.
“A boy ran into my shop and said his father and elder brother had been shot. He was only wearing shorts, no top and sweating despite the wintry weather. I shut down my shop immediately, leaving some items outside,” business-owner Shuabu Lawal said.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced a mass change in security officials after the Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab struck at a quarry in northeast Kenya.
The terrorists brutally executed any non-Muslim working at the quarry. At least 36 people were confirmed dead and several others are missing.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the terror attack and said they will keep executing non-Muslims in Kenya until the country pulls their troops out of Somalia, where they are working with African Union forces to eliminate the terrorists.
Kenyan security officials say the terrorists snuck up on the workers while they were sleeping and then separated the Muslims before shooting others at close range.
President Kenyatta said that police chief David Kimaiyo and Interior Minister Joseph old Lenku are out. He called on the parliament to quickly approve his proposed replacement because “our bickering only emboldens the enemy.”
Police in Lahore, Pakistan tortured and killed a 35-year-old Christian man, setting off a firestorm of protest in the city.
The family of the slain man, Rakha Shahzad, stormed the police facility demanding justice for his killing. The agents claimed the Christian man had drugs and alcohol in his system as well as selling them and died of a “heart attack” during questioning.
The family says that Shahzad was arrested because he was a Christian.
Local Christian officials say that Shahzad’s death is just the latest in ongoing campaigns of hate and intimidation against the Christians of the region by Islamic officials.
“The whole world is still deeply shocked and outraged for the lynching of the Christian couple in Kasur, but violence continues: it is urgent to repeal laws that are routinely used to persecute Christians and ensure justice and legality, starting with the work and the behavior of the police and public officials,” Christian lawyer Mushtaq Gill told The Christian Post.
At least 44 people have been arrested in connection with the lynching of the Christian couple. Gill hopes that police officials in Lahore will be investigated and charged in the death of Shahzad.