Tag: Islamic State

Egypt seeks international help against IS after 21 Christians beheaded

February 16, 2015 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Al-Azhar, Bishop Angaelos, Churches, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Libya, Minya, Samalut, Terrorism, Wahhabism

Egypt began seven days of national mourning after Islamist militants released a graphic video on 15 February, depicting the mass beheading of 20 Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian Christian in Libya. Originally it was believed that all 21 men were Coptic Egyptians, but on 25 February MidEast Christian News confirmed . . . Read More

Iraqi Archbishop ‘begs’ Britain to send in troops

February 10, 2015 Afghanistan, Bashar Warda, Chaldeans, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, London, Nineveh Plains, UK

The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil – the city in Iraqi Kurdistan where thousands of Christians have fled to safety from Islamic State fighters -‘begged’ Britain to send troops to his country to help save Christians there from being wiped out. He said an estimated 125,000 Christians in northern Iraq have . . . Read More

Iraqi Christians still held by Islamic State ‘against their will’

February 1, 2015 Iraq Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Mosul, Peshmerga, Qaraqosh, Refugees

More news has emerged about the situation of Christians who are still being detained in Islamic State after ten elderly Christians, some with disabilities, managed to escape. The group, eight men and two women, were ‘expelled’ by IS militants for refusing to convert to Islam. They spent two days travelling . . . Read More

Abduction of another Egyptian Copt in Libya

January 30, 2015 Libya Islamic State, Kidnapping, Libya, Sirte, Tripoli

Unidentified gunmen abducted an Egyptian working in a restaurant in the Libyan city of Sirte on Jan. 29. According to Middle East news agency Copts Today the colleagues of 26-year-old Christian Samir Sabri Masood, from Sidi Salem Kafr El Sheikh, Egypt, reported the kidnapping to the police after he was . . . Read More

Libyan militants hold 20 Egyptian Christians hostage

January 26, 2015 Libya Ansar al-Sharia, Benghazi, Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Libya, Sirte, Tripoli

Coptic families in Upper Egypt’s Minya province await news on their kidnapped relatives in Libya, January 2015.Photo: Watani The kidnapping of at least 20 Coptic Christians in two separate incidents in December and January has been claimed by Libyan militants affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Seven of the Christians . . . Read More

10 more Christians flee Mosul

January 9, 2015 Iraq Chaldeans, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Kirkuk, Mosul, Peshmerga

On Jan. 7, ten elderly Chaldean Christians and Syrian Catholics arrived in Kirkuk, Iraq after Islamic State militants expelled them from Mosul for their refusal to convert to Islam. The group spent two days travelling to Kirkuk, an area now under the control of Kurdish Peshmerga Forces, after being forced . . . Read More

‘Ethnic cleansing’? No. It’s genocide

January 9, 2015 Iraq Genocide, Islamic State

Thousands of people belonging to Christian groups gathered in Berlin on Aug. 17 to protest ongoing violence in Iraq and Syria by ISIS fighters. Carsten Koall / Getty Images ANALYSIS By Yonas Dembele A senior United Nations human-rights official who recently visited Baghdad and Kurdistan has said the actions taken . . . Read More

2014: A year of rising hostility toward Christians

January 7, 2015 Global News -- No Particular Country Africa, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Asia, Boko Haram, Buddhist nationalism, Central African Republic, China, Communism, Converts, East Africa, Fulani herdsmen, Hindu nationalism, India, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Latin America, Malaysia, Mexico, Middle Belt, Middle East, Narendra Modi, Nigeria, North Korea, Religious freedom, Sri Lanka, Sub-Saharan Africa, Syria

While the world’s eyes were riveted to Syria and Iraq in 2014, life for Christians worsened even more profoundly in Africa, according to an annual report on religious freedom. The situation deteriorated most rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, in countries where Islamic extremism is the main source of pressure upon Christians, . . . Read More

ISIS preparing for worldwide religious cleansing

December 22, 2014 Europe, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Raqqa, Syria

German author and former politician, Juergen Todenhoefer spoke with CNN after travelling into territory occupied by ISIS including Syrian cities Raqqa and Iraq’s second largest city Mosul. “I think the Islamic State is a lot more dangerous than Western leaders realize,” he said to CNN . Their main point of . . . Read More

‘Islamic State’ terror is 2014 top story

December 17, 2014 Iraq, Islamic State, Syria

The surge of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” across Syria and Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of religious and ethnic minorities to flee, is the top religion news story of 2014, according to the Religion Newswriters Assocation. The IS horror stripped northern Iraq nearly completely clear of its Christian population, which . . . Read More

Catching Our Eye