In the early hours of Monday, February 23, Islamic State fighters attacked several Christian villages along the Khabur River in north eastern Syria. Four Christians enrolled in the Assyrian militia were killed and one young civilian child. One Christian woman was raped by the Islamic invaders before being slaughtered. As many as 200 Christians—including women and children—were taken hostage [more recent reports put the number at 350-400]. Their families fear that they will either be sold as slaves and/or raped, or simply massacred, as many other Christian hostages of the Islamic State have been—most recently the 21 Coptic martyrs in Libya.
Several churches were also torched or damaged during the jihadi raid, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua.
And, perhaps worst of all, this raid “brought to light deplorable conduct on the part of other persons,” namely the West. According to Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo:
I wish to say quite clearly that we have the feeling of being abandoned into the hands of Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS]. Yesterday American bombers flew over the area several times, but without taking action. We have a hundred Assyrian families who have taken refuge in Hassakè, but they have received no assistance either from the Red Crescent or from Syrian government aid workers, perhaps because they are Christians. The UN high commission for Refugees is nowhere to be seen.
In a separate interview, the Syrian archbishop added:
With their disastrous policies mainly the French and the US, with their regional allies, have favored in fact the Daesh escalation. Now they persevere in error, commit strategic, grotesque mistakes … instead of recognizing that their guaranteed support to jihadist groups has led us to this chaos and has destroyed Syria, making us regress 200 years.
This persecution of Christians is soon to be judged by YHWH
Is there anything that we, as ordinary citizens, can do to make our voices heard that we want action?? This is insane.
Our administration apparently condones, apologizes for, and secretly supports these “JV team” startups.
We have to clean out the cesspit that is congress here, before we can begin any real efforts to combat these primates over there.
There are wealthy Christian ministries all over the world. Arm Christians! https://www.facebook.com/notes/michael-swenson/the-weapons-of-our-warfare/578505248895105
There is no doubt that secular Western governments are not going to do anything to save Christians in Syria. The best hope that Christians in those areas have for military assistance is probably from international volunteers or groups of volunteers who are willing to provide logistical support, money, or weapons to the Christians currently under attack. We have read of American and European volunteers traveling to Syria to fight with the Kurds. Perhaps there will be volunteers willing to fight with the Christian Assyrians. God help them in this their hour of greatest need and greatest danger.
There is no force in the world that can deffend scattered Christians of Aram (Byzantine Syria: Mesopotamia). The realistic solution is to gather in the only remaining part of our homeland, that is Lebanon. Israel has enormously more power than all the Christians gathered, yet, she can only deffend israelis inside Israel. the End!
What do you expect the ‘coalition’ to do? Bomb the savages and hostages, together? While I agree with the sentiment that western policies gave birth to these jihadists, and disagree with western interventionalism, this situation is a complex one. If they send in a spec-ops team, for example, it would be seen as ‘boots on the ground’ and everyone would flip shit saying the hostage situation was fabricated for an invasion.
What they SHOULD do is actually put these billions of dollars worth of technology to good use, and start wiping these ‘ISIS’ mercenaries off the map – quit wasting tomahawk missiles on $5,000 chevy pickups with rusty DHSKs mounted on the back!