Tag Archives: Syria

Belgium Rescues Over 200 Syrian Christians In Secret Operation

The Belgian government has carried out a secret operation to rescue 240 people, over 200 of them Christians, from the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Christians will be taken to Belgium and offered asylum by the Belgian government.

The secret two-month operation is still being mostly shrouded in secrecy by the Belgian government, likely to keep sources protected from Islamic extremists in the region.

“We did it via civil society organizations which could get them out of there,” said a foreign ministry spokesperson.

“The minority Christians were selected by a citizen ‘action committee’ run by a Belgian diplomat and a psychiatrist with a network of contacts in the country,” AFP news agency wrote. “They left Aleppo in small groups and in seven phases.”

Belgium has taken in about 5,500 refugees from Syria since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “It is a population that needs the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into poverty.”

ISIS Destroys Syrian Artifacts

ISIS terrorists smashed cultural artifacts from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra according to a statement from the terrorists and from Syrian state media outlets.

Terrorists caught a man smuggling six ancient statues through Aleppo province and then destroyed the statues after he was taken to an “Islamic court” in Manbij.

“An IS checkpoint in Wilyat arrested a person transporting several statues from Palmyra,” the group said in an online statement. “The guilty party was taken to an Islamic court in the town of Minbej, where it was decided that the trafficker would be punished and the statues destroyed.”

The statues “appear to be eight statues stolen from the tombs in Palmyra. The destruction is worse than the theft because they cannot be recovered,” Maamoun Abdelkarim, Syria’s Antiquities Director, told the London Guardian.

Also reported destroyed was a 2,000 year old statue of a lion that was outside the museum in Palmyra discovered during a 1977 archaeological mission.

“IS members on Saturday destroyed the Lion of al-Lat, which is a unique piece that is three metres [10ft] tall and weighs 15 tonnes,” Abdelkarim told AFP. “It’s the most serious crime they have committed against Palmyra’s heritage.”

Abdelkarim said the items destroyed by the terrorists were “priceless.”

ISIS Plants Land Mines At Historic Sites

Islamic terrorist group ISIS has planted land mines around some of the world’s most ancient sites according to the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The group told Sky News they had evidence the mines were places around the ancient ruins in the city of Palmyra on Saturday.

The ancient site was overtaken by the Islamic extremists last month and many major world leaders feared they would destroy the ancient parts of the city in the same manner they destroyed ancient tombs and churches in other captured villages.  However, the terrorists have not destroyed the buildings and even used an amphitheater to force residents to watch executions.

“It is not known if the purpose is to blow up the ruins or to prevent regime forces from advancing into the town,” Rami Abdul Rahan, SOHR Director, told Sky News.

A Syrian antiquities official confirmed the report.

“We have preliminary information from residents saying that this is correct, they have laid mines at the temple site,” Maamoun Abdulkarim said. “I hope that these reports are not correct, but we are worried.”

Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was the destination of hundreds of thousands of visitors a year before the Syrian civil war.

American Christian Dies Fighting ISIS

An American who recently became a Christian died while fighting ISIS terrorists alongside Kurdish forces in Syria.

The State Department confirmed that Keith Broomfield, 36, was killed fighting with the Kurdish Protection Unit.  He is believed to be the first American to die after volunteering to fight against the terrorists.

Keith’s mother, Donna Broomfield, said that Keith found Christ and said that God told him to stop the terrorists.

“He turned his life over to the Lord and he decided this was God’s will and God wanted him to do it,” she said.

Jennifer Broomfield, Keith’s sister, posted on Facebook what she said was the last text message conversation between herself and her brother.

“I’m gonna do what I got to do,” Keith wrote.  “Sometimes you got to be a man whether you want to or not. I don’t expect anyone to understand but I don’t need anyone to either.  I appreciate your concern and take it as kindness.”

“My brother died to defend my sisters who are being sold, enslaved, raped and murdered. To defend my brothers who are shot beheaded and dumped into piles off trucks,” Jennifer Bloomfield added.

A Kurdish official said that Keith’s body was returned to his family at the Turkish border on Thursday.

Army Website Hit By Syrian Hackers

The U.S. Army’s official website was taken down Monday by hackers who claim they were the Syrian Electronic Army.

The attack forced the Army to take army.mil offline to protect from further damage.

The hacking comes less than a week after the discovery of Chinese hackers breaking into several important federal government servers that housed the personal information of millions of federal employees.

“Today an element of the Army.mil service provider’s content was compromised,” Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said in a statement. “After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily.”

The Syrian Electronic Army launched in 2011 with a stated goal of attacking the enemies of the Syrian government.  They claim to not be officially connected to the Syrian government.

The Army has been the target of hacking in the recent past.  Five months ago the website was hit by pro-ISIS hackers who posted messages on the Army’s YouTube and twitter accounts.

ISIS Terrorists Control Half of Syria

Islamic terrorist group ISIS officially captured the ancient city of Palmyra on May 20th, meaning the terrorists now control over half of Syria.

The United Nations is particularly concerned about the fall of Palmyra, which is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“Palmyra tells us all cultures are linked. There’s no pure culture, no point in imposing a single culture on others,” Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, said.

Tim Muret of Open Doors told the Christian Post that the news is covering Palmyra because of the UNESCO connection but that many Christian villages being destroyed by the terrorists are being ignored.

“This certainly makes a lot of news in the states because this is a UNESCO heritage site, but the kidnappings, killings, and all the villages being destroyed usually don’t make the news.  These too have historical significance, and many of the villages are Christian,” declared Muret. “We do our best as an organization to educate churches that what you see in the news is really just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Palmyra is an another example of how IS has no regard for civilization or human life,” added Muret.

Muret also added because of the terrorists the Christian population in Syria has significantly declined over the last few years.

“The number of Christians has now dwindled down to 1.1 million or about 5 percent of the Syrian population.” Muret emphasized that Christian villages and populations are essential heritage sites too, “because those populations and much of that culture is the cradle of some of the earliest Christian communities.” The Apostle Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, which at the time had a rapidly expanding Christian population.

British Citizens Returning From Syria Public Threat

British officials say that hundreds of British citizens who traveled to Syria to join ISIS have found their way back to British shores.

Scotland Yard officials say that the number of citizens radicalized in Syria by the Islamists increases the possibility of terrorist attacks on British soil.

“There is no doubt of the horrific nature of the offenses being committed overseas,” Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said. “The influence of those who wish to bring similar violence to the streets of the UK has been an increasing threat here.”

Scotland Yard says as many as 700 extremists are believed to have traveled to Syria with the majority joining ISIS.

Terrorism related arrests in the UK have risen 33% in the last year.

“The type and level of the threat is complex and ranges from lone actors intent on carrying out crude and violent attacks to sophisticated networks set on completing ambitious and coordinated plots,” Rowley said.

“ISIL and other terrorist groups are trying to direct attacks in the UK,” Rowley said, referring to ISIS by an another name, “encouraging British citizens to travel to Syria to fight and train, and are seeking, through propaganda, to provoke individuals in the UK to carry out violent attacks here.

Investigators say that changes in technology are leading to blind spots that need to be corrected by legislation to allow police to investigate in new ways.

Senator Says U.S. Vulnerable To ISIS

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said that the United States is “certainly vulnerable” to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said those who support ISIS see them as a “winning organization” so the U.S. has no other choice but to completely defeat the group.

“The best strategy the U.S. can employ to defeat this is actually defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria so that the reality is conveyed that this is not a winning organization, it is a losing organization,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Johnson cited the recent failed attack on a cartoon contest in Texas as an example of ISIS supporters seeing them as “winning” despite the attack failing in its goal.  Johnson said it’s also difficult because they can’t easily deal with those who are activity promoting ISIS.

“The problem is, what do you do with the not-guilty-yet? We do have laws, we have a Constitution, and it’s extremely difficult for law enforcement officials when you might have tens of thousands of sympathizers — how do you track them all?” Johnson asked.

Johnson said that up to 90,000 twitter accounts in the United States were promoting ISIS although Twitter has begun to delete them.

FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the terrorists are trying to recruit “hundreds, maybe thousands” of potential terrorists in the U.S.  Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the U.S. is in “more serious circumstances today than we were after 9/11.”

“Remember, back then we thought about al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a few other places? Well, we’ve seen al-Qaeda metastasize,” Ridge told CNN. “It is now a global scourge. And you have the ascendancy of ISIL. The combination of those two groups — their appeal to the lone wolfs and we see them acting in Belgium and in France and in Canada and the United States, so the threat factors and the nature of the threats are far more complicated and far more serious today than on Sept. 12, 2001.”

ISIS Attempting to Eliminate Last Christian Speakers of Aramaic

Islamic terrorist group ISIS is attempting to eliminate any Christian that speaks the ancient language Aramaic in an attempt to wipe out the language that was spoken by Christ.

The Associated Press reported that thousands of Christians in Syria have fled their homes in Syria because of the terrorists but that ISIS has placed a bounty on them.  These Assyrians are so valued by ISIS that kidnapped Assyrians are being held for $100,000 each.

“Assyrians remain the last Aramaic-speaking people of the world. So the disappearance and displacement of these people pretty much spells the closing chapter of Aramaic use in the world,” Middle East historian Eden Naby told the AP.

Pockets of Assyrian communities existed in Turkey and Lebanon, but the majority of the Aramaic speaking Assyrians lived in Syria and Iraq.  The communities belong to Eastern Rite churches that we’re founded by the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

The community of Assyrians has fallen from 1.4 million to an estimated 400,000.

Middle East watchdogs say that ISIS is involved in a systematic cleansing of Assyrians although they do not acknowledge their actions.

“They don’t care what it’s called; they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities. It is the Islamic State, and there’s no room for anyone else,” said MEMRI Director Steven Stalinsky.

“This has been going on for some time, a systematic campaign to rid the region of any vestiges of Christianity.”

Six Arrested In Plot To Join ISIS

Six men have been arrested in connection with a plot to travel to Syria to become members of the terrorist group ISIS.

While all six men are residents of Minnesota, two were arrested in San Diego.  The other four were arrested in Minneapolis.  The men are Somalis in their late teens or early 20s.

Federal officials identified the six men as Zacharia Abdurahman, 19, Adnan Farah, 19, Hanad Musse, 19, Guled Omar, 20, Abdirahman Daud, 21, and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21.

“These were not confused young men,”Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger stated during a press conference on Monday. “These are focused young men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization by any means possible.”

The men had connections to another Minnesota man who was indicted in February on terror charges after he tried to head to Syria.

“This is a very serious issue,”Somali activist Omar Jamal told the International Business Times. “We as a community are concerned about losing our kids to ISIS.”

FBI director James Comey said that every state has people like the ones arrested in Minnesota.

“Those people exist in every state,”he outlined. “I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago there was 49 states. Alaska had none, which I couldn’t quite figure out. But Alaska has now joined the group, so we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.”