Greek Orthodox Church Bombed in Syria

A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.

The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.

A man affiliated with IS entered the Greek Orthodox Saint Elias church in the old Christian quarter of Damascus during prayers, opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest while inside the church, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present.

“People were praying safely under the eyes of God,” said Fadi Ghattas, who said he saw at least 20 people killed. “There were 350 people praying at the church.”

Videos of the church’s interior show splintered pews overturned by the force of the blast and the bloodied corpses of congregants splayed out across the church. Nearby residents reported hearing a large blast and then the sound of sirens as security forces attempted to establish a cordon around the area and civil defence personnel headed towards the church.

Issam Nasr, who was praying at the church, said he saw people “blown to bits”.

“We have never held a knife in our lives. All we ever carried were our prayers,” he said.

Read the rest here.

Further this

Holy New Martyrs of Syria, pray for us. 

Report: Two Bishops Abducted in Syria in 2013 Are Alive

Prayers that this is true.

Patriarch Younan: IS cannot be defeated with air raids, the West has betrayed Christians

The head of the Syrian Catholic Church, Mar Ignace Youssif III Younan, accuses Western governments of perpetuating an "endless conflict in Syria" out of regional interests. The terrorists who use Islam as an excuse for violence “have already infiltrated Europe, supported by money from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States under the supervision of Western governments." Pope Francis "true defender of justice, is deeply pained by what is happening in Syria and Iraq."

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HT: A blog reader.

Pat Buchanan Slams Mid-East War Hawks

Having established a base on the Syrian coast, Vladimir Putin last week began air strikes on ISIS and other rebel forces seeking to overthrow Bashar Assad.

A longtime ally of Syria, Russia wants to preserve its toehold on the Mediterranean, help Assad repel the threat, and keep the Islamic terrorists out of Damascus.

Russia is also fearful that the fall of Assad would free up the Chechen terrorists in Syria to return to Russia.

In intervening to save Assad, Putin is doing exactly what we are doing to save our imperiled allies in Baghdad and Kabul.
Yet Putin’s intervention has ignited an almost berserk reaction...

Read the rest here.

ISIS bulldozes ancient Syrian monastery

ISIS fighters have demolished a monastery in central Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Mar Elian monastery in the town of Qaryatain near Homs, was captured by the terrorists  from the Syrian Army two weeks ago. This week they used bulldozers to raze the holy site,

Mar Elian is also where Fr Jacques Mourad was kidnapped in May. He remains one of six clergy in Syria who have been kidnapped by rebel groups, their fates unknown.

Qaryatain is near a road linking the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, also ISIS-controlled to the Qalamoun mountains on the border with Lebanon.

ISIS has also kidnapped 230 people including dozens of Christian families after taking Qaryatain. Of those captured, 48 had been released and 110 were transferred to Raqqa province, the headquarters of the Islamist group.

From here.

Srdja Trifkovic: The Ever More Complex Levantine Puzzle

“...The unrepentant interventionist cabal in Washington will reject such advice with horror and indignation. They still claim that Bashar can be removed, Iran sanctioned ad infinitum and preferably bombed, Iraq kept together, Jordan and Lebanon stabilized, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf relied upon… if only the U.S. would accept its “regional responsibilities” and become “fully engaged” yet again. They also claim that the latest disaster in Iraq is the consequence of the December 2011 American withdrawal. All that is nonsense. The chronic crisis in Iraq, which has been going on with occasional acute eruptions for 13 years, is the consequence of the illegal, unnecessary, costly, and tragic Iraq war, tirelessly urged and waged under countless false pretenses by these same people. They belong in jail or in mental asylum, not in Washington’s “foreign policy community.”

Read the rest here.

The nuns have been freed!

The nuns abducted from their monastery in Syria have been freed. Glory to God!

Interview with Fr. Joseph Huneycutt: Syrian Christians in a Time of Conflict

Two-and-a-half years ago Fr. Joseph Huneycutt traveled to Syria as part of an official delegation of Christian pastors and leaders to investigate the emerging political crisis and to assess the situation of Syria’s Christians. The September 2011 trip was sponsored by the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, and a report of the delegation’s findings was issued here. Now in its third year, the Syria conflict has taken countless lives and has left much of the country destroyed. Reports seem to come in weekly detailing the struggles of Syria’s ancient Christian community. Reports of kidnapping, murder, rape, torture, and destruction of churches at the hands of rebel insurgents are now a common theme of the Syria crisis. Last December, Fr. Joseph’s parish, St. Joseph Orthodox church in Houston, hosted the “Hope, Humanity, Healing” benefit concert to spread awareness of the plight of Syria’s Christians and to raise funds for the relief of all suffering innocents of the conflict. Fr. Joseph agreed to speak with Levant Report this week:

 Read the rest here.

Muslims impose strict Islamic law on Christians in Syria

A jihadist group in Syria has demanded that Christians in the northern city of Raqqa pay a levy in gold and accept curbs on their faith, or face death.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) said it would give Christian residents "protection" if they agreed to the list of conditions...

...The directive from ISIS, citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", requires Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.
  
It says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public. Christians must not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS (also known as ISIL) on their daily lives.

The statement said the group had met Christian representatives and offered them three choices - they could convert to Islam, accept ISIS' conditions, or reject their control and risk being killed.
"If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword," the statement said.

Read the rest here.

Al Qaieda's plans for Syria's Christians

A sobering post over at Samn!'s excellent blog.

HT: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Alarming Reports from Syria (Updated)

Via the Levant Report...
Including unconfirmed reports that Islamists may have sacked St. Thekla's monastery and abducted the nuns. News reports are fragmentary and in the fog of war, sometimes erroneous. But this could be serious.

Update: Samn! has multiple reports that seem to confirm the abduction of the nuns. Please pray for the holy sisters and the persecuted Church in Syria. We still live in the age of martyrs.

Beleaguered Syrian Christians increasingly targeted by jihadis

DAMASCUS, Syria — Sami Amir is used to the deep echoing rumble of the Syrian army artillery pounding rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus. It’s the thump of mortars launched from an Islamist-controlled neighborhood that scares him to death.

The mortars have repeatedly hit in his mainly Christian district of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly killing at least 32 people and injuring dozens of others the past two weeks.

Read the rest here.

Russia's “protectorate” over Middle Eastern Christians

The Kremlin is about to consider granting citizenship to about 50 thousand Syrian Christians in the region of Qualamun after they issued a collective request to Moscow’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In statements issued in the past few days, the spokesmen for President Putin and the Ministry confirmed that the request is being examined by the highest Russian authorities. “This is the first time since Christ’s birth that we, the Christians of Saidnaya and Maara Saidnaya, Maalula and Maarun are being threatened with expulsion from our land.”

The letter was full of praise for Putin’s Russia, which was described as a “powerful factor for global peace and stability”. But its remarks about western countries were less flattering: “the aim of the terrorists who are being supported by the West, is to eliminate our presence in our homeland. They use the most abhorrent methods to achieve this, murdering ordinary people for example.”

Read the rest here.

50,000 Christians in Syria Request Russian Citizenship

A damning indictment of the West.

As a friend on another forum noted, it would seem that the Nobel Peace Prize is really a strange Norwegian joke that only they understand.

NY Times Guest Op-Ed: Vladimir Putin on Syria

MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

Read the rest here.

Obama Cautiously Welcomes Russia's Proposal on Syria

President Obama on Monday called a Russian proposal for Syria to turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors in order to avoid a military strike a “potentially positive development,” that could represent a “significant breakthrough,” but he said he remains skeptical the Syrian government would follow through on its obligations based on its recent track record.

“Between the statements that we saw from the Russians — the statement today from the Syrians — this represents a potentially positive development,” Obama said in an interview with NBC News, according to a transcript provided by the network. “We are going to run this to ground.  [Secretary of State] John Kerry will be talking to his Russian counterpart. We’re going to make sure that we see how serious these proposals are.”

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Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Invading Syria

WASHINGTON—As President Obama continues to push for a plan of limited military intervention in Syria, a new poll of Americans has found that though the nation remains wary over the prospect of becoming involved in another Middle Eastern war, the vast majority of U.S. citizens strongly approve of sending Congress to Syria.

The New York Times/CBS News poll showed that though just 1 in 4 Americans believe that the United States has a responsibility to intervene in the Syrian conflict, more than 90 percent of the public is convinced that putting all 535 representatives of the United States Congress on the ground in Syria—including Senate pro tempore Patrick Leahy, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and, in fact, all current members of the House and Senate—is the best course of action at this time.

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HT: T-19

A War the Generals Don't Want

The tapes tell the tale. Go back and look at images of our nation’s most senior soldier, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and his body language during Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Syria. It’s pretty obvious that Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, doesn’t want this war. As Secretary of State John Kerry’s thundering voice and arm-waving redounded in rage against Bashar al-Assad’s atrocities, Dempseywas largely (and respectfully) silent.

Dempsey’s unspoken words reflect the opinions of most serving military leaders. By no means do I profess to speak on behalf of all of our men and women in uniform. But I can justifiably share the sentiments of those inside the Pentagon and elsewhere who write the plans and develop strategies for fighting our wars. After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals who have been intimate witnesses to the unfolding events that will lead the United States into its next war.

They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.

Read the rest here.

Little GOP support for Syrian strike is seen in the face of strong popular opposition

...Mr. Cole’s constituent experience is not isolated. Representative Mick Mulvaney, a Republican swept into power in 2010 in military-focused South Carolina on a platform of small government, said that in his three-plus years in Congress, no issue had elicited as passionate a response as Syria. And, he added, “to say it’s 99 percent against would be overstating the support.”

Of the 1,000 or so calls and e-mails he has received, three supported some kind of response. And two-thirds of the correspondents have never reached out to him before.

Representative Candice S. Miller, Republican of Michigan, said she was at a peach festival parade last weekend in her district, an event that does not typically draw the type of constituent who is overly political. But as she made her way down the parade route, one person after another urged her to vote no on any authorization of force in Syria.

“It was not a political event at all,” Ms. Miller said. “But there were a lot of people, older veterans especially in their hats, all saying, ‘No on Syria!'   “

Read the rest here.