This undated image made from a video released by Islamic State militants, Sunday, April 19, 2015, appears to show the killing of a group of captured Ethiopian Christians in Libya. (AP)
The White House Sunday evening condemned a video purportedly showing a mass execution of Ethiopian Christians in Libya by terrorists affiliated with Islamic State.
"We express our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Ethiopian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens," National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said in a statement. "That these terrorists killed these men solely because of their faith lays bare the terrorists' vicious, senseless brutality."
A group of Muslim migrants have been arrested for 'aggravated murder' after allegedly throwing 12 Christians into the Mediterranean sea during a recent crossing from Libya, Italian police reports.
Witnesses say a fight broke out on a rubber dinghy carrying more than 100 African migrants from Libya to Sicily, after which the men were thrown to their deaths.
A group of 15 men have now been arrested on suspicion of 'multiple aggravated murder motivated by religious hate,' Palermo police said in a statement.
Murders: A fight over religion broke out on a boat carrying 105 migrants from Libya, after which 12 men 'professing the Christian faith' were thrown to their deaths. Pictured: Migrants are transferred to holding centers after disembarking from in Augusta's port, near Siracusa, Sicily
BRUSSELS/ISTANBUL, April 15 (Reuters) - The European Parliament backed a motion on Wednesday that calls the massacre a century ago of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces a "genocide", days after Pope Francis triggered fury in Turkey by using the same term.
Although the resolution repeated language previously adopted by the parliament in 1987, it could stoke tensions with EU candidate nation Turkey. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said even before the vote took place that he would ignore the result.
After the vote, the Turkish foreign ministry accused the European Parliament of attempting to rewrite history.
29 Syrian Christians killed in Aleppo during violent onslaught after threat from Turkey in approach to anniversary of Armenian genocide
Armenian and other solidly Christian neighbourhoods of Aleppo are reeling from a deadly rebel attack last week that peaked on Friday night (10 April) with rockets killing some 29 people, many of them children. At least 56 Christians were injured and seven Christian homes totally collapsed.
Aleppo has seen massive destruction in the current conflict
It was “a hell” said one Christian leader in Aleppo, describing the five hours from 9 pm until 2 am on Friday night and Saturday morning in which rockets rained down on the Christian homes. The final rocket to fall weighed 350kg but did not explode.
At least ten or eleven children were killed as they slept. In one home, a mother and her four children all died. But better news came on Saturday night when four other children were found alive under the ruins of one building.
Hindu Extremists Block Good Friday Service, Beat Christians in Uttar Pradesh, IndiaPastor ordered to vacate rented property.By Our New Delhi Correspondent NEW DELHI, April 10, 2015 (Morning Star News) – Under pressure from Hindu extremists, local officials kept a church from meeting on Good Friday (April 3) in India’s Uttar Pradesh state and ordered the pastor to vacate the property, the church leader said.
Pastor Daniel Singh of Salvation for Asia Church in Swar, near Rampur, told Morning Star News his two-year lease of the land allowed him to build a worship site, but Hindu extremists in the northern state have been threatening to burn his church building if he does not leave the property.
Isis ‘tentacles’ spreading in Muslim community, warns Rochdale imam
Locals urged to resist lure of Islamic State as local councillor’s son named among nine locals arrested on Syrian border
Waheed Ahmed, the son of Rochdale councillor Shakil Ahmed, leaves hospital after a medical checkup and fingerprinting in Hatay province, Turkey. Photograph: Anadolu Agency
An imam in Rochdale has warned that the “tentacles of Isis” are spreading far and fast through the Muslim community as it emerged that a local Labour councillor’s son was among nine people from the town arrested on the Turkish-Syrian border.
A church commemorating the Coptic victims of the Islamic State was attacked in the southern Egyptian province of Minya Friday, in the latest incident of violence against the Christian minority. Copts are pictured here outside a church in Minya's al-Our village, Feb. 16, 2015.Reuters/Asmaa Waguih
Over 100 Christians arrested for lynching 2 in Pakistan
AP
Pakistani protesters take cover during clashes with police on Monday. Christian protesters clashed with police a day after Taliban bombers killed more than a dozen people in suicide attacks on two churches in the city.
Over 100 Christians have been arrested for allegedly being part of a mob that lynched two men after Taliban suicide attacks on two churches in Pakistan's biggest Christian colony that killed 17 people.
Confirming the arrests, a senior investigation officer said that more than 100 Christian protesters were arrested. They are currently being investigated by the police to determine their role in the protests.
Abdelhakim Belhadj, Washington's Al Qaeda Ally Now Leading ISIS in Libya
By Eric Draitser
Global Research, March 10, 2015
The revelations that US ally Abdelhakim Belhadj is now leading ISIS in Libya should come as no surprise to those who have followed US policy in that country, and throughout the region. It illustrates for the umpteenth time that Washington has provided aid and comfort to precisely those forces it claims to be fighting around the world.
According to recent reports, Abdelhakim Belhadj has now firmly ensconced himself as the organizational commander of the ISIS presence inside Libya. The information comes from an unnamed US intelligence official who has confirmed that Belhadj is supporting and coordinating the efforts of the ISIS training centers in eastern Libya around the city of Derna, an area long known as a hotbed of jihadi militancy.
Dozens of suspected militants killed in Egypt’s North Sinai: sources
ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt’s military killed dozens of suspected Islamist militants in an operation in Sinai, security sources said on Wednesday, while state media reported the kidnapping of a businessman in the region.
Apache helicopter gunships killed 18 suspected militants after they destroyed four vans in North Sinai, security sources in the remote but strategic region said.
Bishoy Armia Bolis (Formerly Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy) solicitor's face official obstruction in lodging an appeal
Bishoy Armia Bolis (Formerly Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy solicitor, Mr Akram Gobrial is facing obstruction and intransigence from minor figure in the Egypt Legal system which will result in failure to take the case against Bishoy to the cassation court.
So far the lawyer travelled 4 times to Minya governorate to obtain the court ruling against the 1 year sentence for Bishoy alleged " activities which harm public interest, spreading false rumours, and possessing a camera" which working as correspondent for Tarek TV channel.
The legal system in Egypt is sound at the high level but such obstruction from minor figures in the system, such as court clerks would hinder justice. We ask the Attorney General to stop events which make mockery of justice system and reflects badly on Egypt's image.
Imran Khawaja, British Jihadi Who Faked His Own Death, Is Jailed For 12 Years
Armed British police officers stand on guard near the French Institute and French School in the South Kensington area of London, on the same day the new edition of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo went on sale in France, with copies expected to arrive at vendors to be sold in London on Friday, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) | ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON (AP) — A British jihadi who faked his death in an attempt to secretly return to England from Syria was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison.
Imran Khawaja, who joined a faction aligned with the Islamic State group and attended an extremist training camp in Syria for six months, had appeared in the group's online propaganda videos — including one in which he posed with a man's severed head.
Among several protests across Pakistan against a French satire magazine’s cartoons of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, hundreds of Muslims in a terrorist-infested northwestern province on Monday (Jan. 26) stormed a Christian school, demanding its closure.
Some 300 protestors from local schools and colleges entered the premises of Panel High School for Boys in Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, after jumping its outer walls and forcing open the gates, principal Fredrick Farhan Das told Morning Star News by phone.
Militants with possible Islamic State ties struck more than a dozen army and police targets in the restive Sinai Peninsula with simultaneous attacks involving a car bomb and mortar rounds on Thursday, killing at least 26 security officers.
An Army spokesman immediately blamed former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood of orchestrating the attack, which killed 25 Army soldiers and one policeman.
Belgian anti-terror raid in Verviers leaves two dead
Two suspected jihadists have been killed in an anti-terror operation in eastern Belgium, officials say.
A third person had been arrested in the raid in Verviers and weapons are reported to have been recovered.
Prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told reporters police had targeted a group returning from Syria who had been about to launch attacks in a matter of hours.
Largest Islamic Body in the World Calls for More Anti-Free Speech Laws in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
By Patrick Poole
Last week’s terror attack targeting French magazine Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris has sparked a global conversation about the nature of free speech, with the “Je Suis Charlie” hashtag in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo staff going viral and becoming the most used hashtag in the history of Twitter.
But this afternoon, the UN representative for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ufuk Gokcen, was expressing another view with respect to free speech.
08.47 One of the gunmen in the attack this morning in southwest Paris was wearing a bullet-proof vest when he fired on police officers with an automatic, seriously injuring one of them, a police source said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is rushing to the scene of the incident near Porte de Chatillon south of Paris.
