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Armenian Slaughtered for Refusing to Renounce Christ
Armenian Christians Pressured to Convert to Islam
The jiahdists of ISIL in Raqqa confiscate the property of Christians
A video footage has recently emerged showing an old man who is claimed to be a member of one of two Armenian-Syrian families who have recently converted to Islam after al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) occupied the area of Kafr Hamra in rural Aleppo, where these two families live.
The video shows a cleric in a mosque telling the audience that it was the good treatment of the old man’s Muslim neighbors that encouraged him to adopt Islam as his new religion. The same applies for his entire family as well as another family. The site khabararmani.com (Armenian news) reports that two Armenian families were forced to convert by ISIL, which contradicts the claims made by the cleric in the video.
Following the other day’s news that at the hands of the terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—which, nonetheless, claimed that the conversions were done “willingly”—new information has emerged concerning the recent killing of a young Armenian man, Minas, for refusing to convert to Islam, again at the hands of ISIL.
He was reportedly killed in one of ISIL’s dungeons in Aleppo, north Syria, which has a notable Armenian minority.
ISIL radicals execute and crucify man in Syria’s Raqqa: Video
Members of Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and civilians have been excuted by ISIL members in Kadi askar area of Aleppo.
Christian Community in Northern Iraq About to Vanish Forever
Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, hayer) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland, surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. Portasar is situated in the South of the Armenian Highlands, 15 km south-east from the old city Urha/Edessa, Urfa/ of Armenian Mesopatamia.
The discovery of the cultural layers/three layers/ of Portasar shows that it was a religious-ritual centre for sedentary people for several millenniums. The territory is in Armenian cultural area. Armenian is an Indo-European language.
Due to centuries-long foreign domination, a wide-ranging diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry live outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. With the exceptions of Georgia, Iran, Russia and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide.
Movses Khorenatsi, the important early medieval Armenian historian, wrote that the word Armenian originated from the name Armenak or Aram (the descendant of Hayk). The original Armenian name for the country was Hayk, later Hayastan (Armenian: Հայաստան), translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name of the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya (ha-ià) and the Iranian suffix ‘-stan’ (“land”).
Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus’s death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus, or Jude, sometimes identified with Jude, the brother of Jesus, but clearly distinguished from Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus prior to his crucifixion, and St. Bartholomew, usually identified with Nathanael.
The Armenian Apostolic Church honors Thaddeus along with Saint Bartholomew as its patron saints. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.
In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became arguably the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion. Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world’s oldest national church.
Assyria was a major Semitic kingdom, and often empire, of the Ancient Near East, existing as an independent state for a period of approximately nineteen centuries from c. 2500 BC to 605 BC, spanning the Early Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age.
Centered on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia (northern Iraq, northeast Syria and southeastern Turkey), the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times, the last of which grew to be the largest and most powerful empire the world had yet seen.
For a further thirteen centuries, from the end of the 7th century BC to the mid-7th century AD, it survived as a geo-political entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers, although a number of small Neo-Assyrian states arose at different times throughout this period.
Assyrians today are exclusively Christian, with most following the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox churches.
Aramean people (not to be confused with ‘Armenians’) speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Abraham, Moses and Jesus. They are the indigenous people of what was called in ancient times Aram-Nahrin, in our days it is called ‘Mesopotamia’.
Some Arameans today identify themselves with “Assyrians”, because of the spiritual colonial hate generating activities of the Western missionaries and diplomats in the Middle-East in 16th and 19th centuries. Other Arameans became known as “Chaldeans”. However all of them are Arameans.
A recently released report prepared by the Swedish-based NGO the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) shows that many Aramean Syriacs fleeing the violence from Syria are smuggled to Europe via Turkey. However, they are sent to refugee camps or jails after being discovered.
The report, titled “Aramean (Syriac) Refugees from Syria into Greece via Turkey: A Case Study of Refugees in Need in Athens,” says Aramean migrants first try to reach Istanbul, then go to Greece and then on to a third country. However, many are sent to jail or to refugee camps after being discovered.
The ongoing situation
The violent Sunni uprising in Iraq has had many devastating effects in the region, but one that has gone relatively unnoticed is what appears to be the end of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. The archbishop of the Chaldean Catholics in Mosul, a city recently overtaken by ISIS forces, has announced that the few remaining Christians have been forced to abandon the city.
Foreign Policy’s Christian Caryl reports: Since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003, [Archbishop Emil Shimoun Nona] estimates, Mosul’s Christian population dwindled from 35,000 to some 3,000. “Now there is no one left,” he said. Most of them have joined the estimated 500,000 refugees who have fled the ISIS advance; many of the Christians, including the archbishop, have opted for the relative security of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The reluctant exodus from Mosul is a direct result of the ISIS jihadists’ reputation for violence, a reputation Caryl states has been “consciously furthered through its own propaganda”: A few days ago, the jihadists used social media to distribute photos supporting their claim that they had killed 1,700 Shiite prisoners taken during their rapid offensive. No sooner had ISIS entered Mosul than some of their fighters set fire to an Armenian church. This all seems consistent with the group’s grim record during the civil war in Syria, where, among other things, it has revived medieval Islamic restrictions on Christian populations.
Sadly, what has happened in Mosul has happened all over Iraq. What was an estimated 1.5 million Christian Iraqis (5% of the population) in 2003 has now dwindled to a tiny fraction of the number, an “overwhelming majority” leaving the country due to the escalation of violence at the hands of the militant radicals. The Roman Catholic Chaldeans, the Armenians, the Syriac Orthodox, and the Greek Orthodox communities have all but vanished in the war-torn country.
Caryl does note that there are some “faint glimmers of hope” for the restoration of Mosul’s multi-faith community, with reports of efforts by some Muslims to protect the city’s churches from looting and Islamists attempting to “assuage the fears of religious minorities in the city.” However, Caryl argues, Iraqi Christians “can hardly be blamed if they’re unwilling to bank on these faint glimmers of hope — the jihadists’ record speaks too eloquently against them.”
Armenia: Iraqi-Armenian Refugees Looking to Move On
Christian Community in Northern Iraq About to Vanish Forever
Some 10,000 people flee from Christian communities in northern Iraq
Jihadists attack Armenian church in Iraq’s Mosul
Welcome to the website of Aramean Christians of Syria
Report reveals Syriacs’ rocky journey out of Syria
Things Fall Apart: Iraq
Scott Rickard, a former US intelligence linguist, from Atlanta, is saying that the United States were not surprised when it comes to the speed of ISIL. This was an organization that was very well trained by intelligence communities, not just Americans, British, French, Jordanian, Turkish.
We have seen this group now for a while operating in Syria and committing unbelievable crimes. It is a large organization that’s been operating in that region for several years, that’s very well funded. One week to two weeks prior they had Susan Rice and also Barack Obama announcing that they’re going to give another 27 million dollars to “moderate rebels”. This is the result.
The mistakes of U.S. foreign policy are mostly based on the same flawed idea: that the world is a chessboard on which the U.S. makes moves, or manipulates proxies to make moves, that either defeat, counter or occasionally face setbacks from the single opponent across the table.
The game held up for a fair amount of time; the U.S. versus the Nazis (D-Day = checkmate!), the U.S. versus Japan (Lose an important piece at Pearl Harbor, grab pawns island by island across the Pacific, and so forth). Most of the Cold War seemed to work this way.
And so into Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration seemed to believe they could invade Iraq, topple Saddam and little would be left to do but put away the unused chessmen and move on to the next game. In reality, world affairs do not (any longer?) exist in a bipolar game. Things are complex, and things fall apart. Here is a quick tour of that new form of game in Iraq.
Iran
– Iranian transport planes are making two daily flights of military equipment into Baghdad, 70 tons per flight, to resupply Iraqi security forces.
– Iran is flying Ababil surveillance drones over Iraq from Al Rashid airfield near Baghdad. Tehran also deployed an intelligence unit to intercept communications. General Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, visited Iraq at least twice to help Iraqi military advisers plot strategy. Iran has also deployed about a dozen other Quds Force officers to advise Iraqi commanders, and help mobilize more than 2,000 Shiite militiamen from southern Iraq.
– As many as ten divisions of Iranian military and Quds Force troops are massed on the border, ready to intevene if Baghdad comes under assault or if important Shiite shrines in cities like Samarra are threatened, American officials say.
– Suleimani was a presence in Iraq during the U.S. Occupation and helped direct attacks against American troops. In particular, Iraqi Shiite militias under the tutelage of Suleimani attacked American troops with powerful explosive devices supplied by Tehran. These shaped charges were among the very few weapons used toward the end of the U.S. Occupation that could pierce U.S. armor, and were directly responsible for the deaths of Americans.
– General Suleimani is also the current architect of Iranian military support in Syria for President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. calls for Assad to give up power, and was steps away from war in Syria to remove Assad only months ago.
– Should America conduct air strikes in Iraq (some claim they are already stealthily underway), those strikes would be in direct support of Iranian efforts, and perhaps Iranian troops, on the ground.
– The United States has increased its manned and unmanned surveillance flights over Iraq, and is now flying about 30 to 35 missions a day. The American flights include F-18s and P-3 surveillance planes, as well as drones.
ISIS
– ISIS, currently seen as a direct threat to both Iraq, Syria and the Homeland, is a disparate group of mostly Sunni-affiliated fighters with strong ties to Syria. The U.S. is now at war with them, though it appears that as recently as 2012 the U.S. may have had Special Forces arming and training them at a secret base in Safawi, in Jordan’s northern desert region. There are reports that the U.S. also trained fighters at locations in Turkey, feeding them into the Syrian conflict against Assad.
– ISIS has been funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three supposed U.S. allies. “The U.S. Treasury is aware of this activity and has expressed concern about this flow of private financing. But Western diplomats’ and officials’ general response has been a collective shrug,” a Brookings Institute report states.
– ISIS itself is a international group, though added 1,500 Sunni Iraqis it liberated from a Shia prison near Mosul. A senior U.S. intelligence official said there are approximately 10,000 ISIS fighters — roughly 7,000 in Syria and 3,000 in Iraq. There are between 3,000 and 5,000 foreign fighters who have been incorporated into ISIS ranks.
Turkey
– The New York Times reports Turkey allowed rebel groups of any stripe easy access across its borders to the battlefields in Syria in an effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad. An unknown number of Turks are now hostages in Iraq, and Turkey continues its tussles with the Kurds to (re)fine that border.
– “The fall of Mosul was the epitome of the failure of Turkish foreign policy over the last four years,” said Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. “I can’t disassociate what happened in Mosul from what happened in Syria.”
Iraq
– With the official Iraqi Army in disarray, Prime Minister Maliki is increasingly reliant on Shiite militias primarily loyal to individual warlords and clerics, such as the Madhi Army. Despite nine years of Occupation, the U.S. never defeated the Madhi Army. Prime Minister Maliki never had the group surrender its weapons, and now, with the Baghdad government too weak to disarm them, they exist as the private muscle of Iraq’s hardline Shias. Once loosed onto the battlefield, Maliki will not be able to control the militias. The Mahdi Army has also sworn to attack American “advisors” sent to Iraq, believing them to be a vanguard for a second U.S. occupation. Many of the most powerful militias owe their ultimate loyalty not to the Iraqi state, but to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr has much blood on his hands left over from the Occupation.
Syria and Israel
– Syrian government aircraft bombed Sunni targets inside Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 57 civilians and wounding 120. Syrian warplanes also killed at least 12 people in the eastern Iraqi city of Raqqa Wednesday morning. A U.S. official said it was not clear whether the Iraqi government requested or authorized Syrian air strikes in Iraqi territory.
– Israeli warplanes and rockets struck targets inside Syria the same day as Syria struck Iraq.
Checkmate
It should be clear that there is no such thing as simply “doing something” in this crisis for the U.S. As with the 2003 invasion itself, no action by the United States can stand alone, and every action by the United States will have regional, if not global, repercussions apparently far beyond America’s ability to even understand.
A chess game? Maybe, of sorts. While American interest in Iraq seems to parallel American interest in soccer, popping up when world events intrude before fading again, the other players in Iraq have been planning moves over the long game. In the blink of an eye, U.S. efforts in Syria have been exposed as fully-counterproductive toward greater U.S. goals, the U.S. has been drawn back into Iraq, with troops again on the ground in a Muslim war we thought we’d backed out of. The U.S. finds itself supporting Iranian ground forces, and partnering with militias well outside of any government control, with Special Forces working alongside potential suicide bombers who only a few years ago committed themselves to killing Americans in Iraq. What appears to be the U.S. “plan,” some sort of unity government, belies the fact that such unity has eluded U.S. efforts for almost eleven years of war in Iraq.
In such a complex, multiplayer game it can be hard to tell who is winning, but it is easy in this case to tell who is losing. Checkmate.
The Manufacturing of the War on Syria
The Syrian Election and ISIS in Iraq
‘ISIL sums up KSA, Qatar, Turkey goals’
The fierce ambition of ISIL’s Baghdadi
ISIS fighters tells families “hand over your daughters for sex” after orders from cleric’s fatwa
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ISIL militants well-funded for years – Scott Richard
Istanbul-based Islamic charity organization uses ISIL-adopted insignia on logo
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