The 21 Coptic Martyrs are role models for all Christians and a Catholic heart wants to honour them as such
The murder of the 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by ISIS has raised the issue for Catholics as to whether we can acknowledge them as martyrs as the Copts have done. The SSPX and the Josias blog, for instance, contend that the Copts are heretics and schismatics. The Josias asks if a Copt being murdered by a militant anti-Christian “for his Christian profession, would… suddenly… [be] a good Christian? Would it gain him entry into heaven and blot out his sins?”
Read more: Can Catholics recognise the 21 murdered Coptic Christians as martyrs?
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How the Muslim Brotherhood fits into a network of extremism
The Muslim Brotherhood’s objective is to replace secular democratic government with an Islamic caliphate under sharia law
The Government is preparing a major clampdown on organisations linked to the terror group Hamas after the long-awaited publication of its review into the Muslim Brotherhood.
The review, by the former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir John Jenkins, has been delayed for months amid disputes about how strongly it should say the Brotherhood is linked to terrorism.
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General Keane: Radical Islam Has Morphed Into A Global Jihad Movement.
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The former vice chief of staff of the Army, General Jack Keane, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that al-Qaeda has “grown fourfold in the last five years.” General Keane refereed to the terrorist threat as “radical Islam”, something the Obama administration refuses to do.
General Jack Keane told Gibson that President Obama can be forgiven for not using the term “radical Islam” if he had a clear cut strategy to defeat the terrorists, adding, that using drones to kill terrorists is not a strategy, it’s a tactic. Keane goes on to say that we have a fragmented, selective approach to deal with a problem that is global in nature
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Saudi Arabia’s New King Helped Fund Radical Terrorist Groups
Monarch tied to anti-Semitic Muslim clerics, funding of jihad
BY: Adam Kredo
King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned monarch, has a controversial history of helping to fund radical terror groups and has maintained ties with several anti-Semitic Muslim clerics known for advocating radical positions, according to reports and regional experts.
Salman, previously the country’s defense minister and deputy prime minister, was crowned king last week after his half-brother King Abdullah died at the age of 90.
Read more: Saudi Arabia’s New King Helped Fund Radical Terrorist Groups
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Calling Radical Islam What It Is
National Director, Anti-Defamation League
The solution to the threat lies primarily within the Muslim world itself. Mainstream Muslims must on every level, starting with education, discourage young people from taking the extremist path. But if we in the West are reluctant to explicitly say what it is, why should Muslim moderates speak and act?
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Christians are a Litmus Test of Libya's Decline
by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine January 12, 2015
Images of Coptic Christian hostages held by a Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State group. |
That jihadis and other ISIS-type militants gained the most from Western intervention in Libya four years ago cannot be denied. Simply looking at the treatment of Christian minorities—the litmus test of the radicalization of any Muslim society—proves this.
Thus, today, Monday, January 12, "A Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed the abduction of 21 Coptic Christians and released pictures of the captives." It is not clear if these 21 are in addition to the 13 Christians kidnapped days earlier on January 3.
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“He said Islam needs a religious revolution. He said, ‘I’m referring here, to the religious clerics.’ We have to think hard about what we are facing, and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. ‘It’s inconceivable,’ said Sisi, ‘that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.’“‘Impossible!’ he says.Read more: Levin: Egyptian President ‘Made More Sense in One Speech Than Obama Has in Any Speech
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Radical Islam a growing threat to sub-Saharan Christians: report
By Tom Heneghan
Members of al Qaeda's Nusra Front carry their weapons as they move towards their positions near al-Zahra village, north of Aleppo city, November 25, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Hosam Katan
PARIS (Reuters) - Radical Islamists were the main persecutors of Christians around the world last year, not only in the Middle East but increasingly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to an annual survey monitoring religious freedom.
Open Doors, an international group supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, said on Wednesday Islamic militants posed the greatest threat to the faith in 18 of the 20 countries that its annual World Watch List says are toughest for Christians.
Read more: Radical Islam a growing threat to sub-Saharan Christians: report
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The Churches Burned After Egypt's Coup Last Year Are Still in Ruins
Laura Dean
It's early, just before 7 a.m. Elderly ladies with elegantly coiffed hair shuffle toward the Amir Tadros church. The towers are ringed with scaffolding, and a makeshift fence of wooden boards seals off the church entrance except when it's prayer time. On one side there's a yawning hole in the ground where the foundation is being rebuilt.
Exactly 16 months ago here, as news flowed in of the bloody dispersal of sit-ins in Cairo that left more than 800 supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi dead, angry mobs in this Upper Egyptian city took to the street and attacked churches, shops and other Christian-run establishments.
Read more: The Churches Burned After Egypt's Coup Last Year Are Still in Ruins
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Safeguarding freedom of religion or belief is "a top human rights priority" for the British Government, Foreign Office Minister Baroness Anelay of St Johns said.
She was in the Vatican on Wednesday to mark the centenary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See.
Interviewed on Vatican Radio, she recalled her speech at the launch of a report by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need into religious persecution around the world. One of a number of speakers at last month's launch, she said that global religious freedom was “in a period of serious decline” and acknowledged a “very real danger that Christianity may become extinct” in the Middle East due to persecution.
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ISIS that is among us
Medhat Klada
They are a group of barbaric ferocious people who have submitted themselves to a terrorist religious ideology. They rejoice over slaughtering people and cheer when they see their victims bleed to death. They believe they are the followers of God, while in fact they are the followers of the most violent demons. They have the features of human beings and the souls of devils. They slaughter people while they chant “Allah is the greatest” and kill their victims in the name of religion. Ironically they think that they are the soldiers of God, while their deeds prove that they are the soldiers of the ruthless Satan. They believe that they are righteous, while their acts reflect who they really are. They rape women and girls in the name of God! They brutally assault girls who are still virgins as long as they are Shiites, Yazidis or Christians. They are doing all these things as if it were a rehearsal for how they will behave in their promised paradise
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Ottawa terrorist attack rattled markets but galvanized the nation
Apart from denouncing Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the convert to radical Islam who shot the unarmed Cpl. Cirillo, you had to take comfort that the assassin’s cause ...
Apart from denouncing Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the convert to radical Islam who shot the unarmed Cpl. Cirillo, you had to take comfort that the assassin’s cause suffered a richly deserved humiliation
Shamefully, minutes after my initial widely shared anger and personal red alert about the shooting at Ottawa’s National War Memorial of the young soldier later identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, the crass thought stole into my mind: what will this do to the markets?
Well, they went down, of course. And within days they shot up – ironically because Japan, our Asian enemy of the Second World War, let loose domestic economic forces long frustrated in that paradoxically wealthy but economically stagnant nation. World markets soared, the Canadian dollar sagged, and likely no one had a better or worse breakfast for it.
Read more: Ottawa terrorist attack rattled markets but galvanized the nation
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The ugly attractions of ISIS’ ideology
By Amir Taheri
Islamic State flag flies near the Syrian town of Kobani.Photo: Getty Images
“Pure Mohammadan Islam”: This is what ISIS, Daesh in Arabic, promises to deliver once the caliphate has defeated “Infidel” enemies and secured its position. The promise is at the core of its propaganda, including in cyberspace.
Its recent blitzkrieg victories and high-profile beheadings are not the only reason ISIS has attracted universal attention. Perhaps more interesting is Daesh’s ability to seduce large numbers of Muslims across the globe, including in Europe and the United States.
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Journalist Speaks Out Against Media Silence on Christian Persecution
(Photo: Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah)
A Christian woman who fled Iraq in June pictured above.
Notable American journalist Georgie Anne Geyer has condemned media reports that have left out the persecution of Christians in stories that have made major headlines, including news on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Ebola.
Geyer noted in an editorial piece published in The Columbus Dispatch that the two biggest news stories in the past months have both involved the plight of Christians.
Read more: Journalist Speaks Out Against Media Silence on Christian Persecution
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Islamism in Egypt – untangling the confusion
Since the assassination of the Egyptian Prime Minister in 1945 and 1948, and dozens of other subsequent assassinations – most notably the assassination of President Sadat on October 6th 1981 and the assassinations perpetrated by the Brotherhood today in Egypt – their own history and the unfolding facts on the ground demonstrate that the Muslim Brotherhood have not forsaken violence and murder but rather have bequeathed this to the currents that are spawned from them.
by Tarek Heggy
There continues to be confusion about the events of June 30th 2013, when three million Egyptians spilled onto the squares and streets of Egyptian cities demanding the removal of President Morsi. Media commentary has tended to focus on matters of legitimacy concerning the latest aspect of the crisis – the cancellation of the results of the ballot box that had taken place 12 months before, and the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood – without at the same time providing a fuller analysis of the events – no less touching on legitimacy – that led up to this momentous occurrence.
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5 Key Implications if Baghdad Falls to ISIS
By Patrick Poole
Reports that ISIS has surrounded Baghdad and is quickly closing in on the Baghdad International Airport (armed with MANPADS, no less) are troubling. Baghdad itself has been rocked by a series of VBIED attacks in the past 24 hours by ISIS, indicating that the battle for Baghdad has begun.
The possible fall of Baghdad could be the most significant development in the War on Terror since 9/11. And yet many among the D.C. foreign policy “smart set” were not long ago mocking such a scenario.
So what happens if such a situation comes to pass? Here are five key implications (by no means limited to these) if Baghdad falls to ISIS:
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The Muslim nation where ISIS is free to recruit
A Muslim man wears a headband showing ISIS' symbol during a protest calling for the closure of a local prostitution complex in Surabaya Indonesia, June 18, 2014. AP
CIANJUR, Indonesia -- A businessman who proclaims himself leader of the Indonesian chapter of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group says he has personally overseen the departure of scores of fighters from this Southeast Asian nation to Syria and Iraq. Police detained him for a night recently, but were unable to charge him with a crime.
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Egypt, a key to defeating radical Islam
Cairo’s crushing of extremists is a model for snuffing out a spreading threat
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Understanding Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi And The Phenomenon Of The Islamic Caliphate State
Introduction
The successive atrocities committed by the Islamic State (IS, previously called the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham – ISIS) have diverted the discussion away from an understanding of this organization's political program, creating the erroneous impression that it is simply a more vicious version of Al-Qaeda. According to this view, this organization presumably intends to attack the West by means of its foreign militants who hold Western passports and could return to Western countries to carry out terror attacks – and hence it is paramount to destroy the IS forthwith. Saudi King 'Abdallah bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz promoted this approach when he said that he was certain that those jihadists "would arrive in Europe within a month and in America within two months".[1]
Read more: Understanding Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi And The Phenomenon Of The Islamic Caliphate State