RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Islamic State is using kidnapped Yazidi children to carry out suicide missions as the U.S.-led coalition forces continue their assault on the terror group’s remaining strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

In a video posted Tuesday, two young Yazidi boys seemingly brainwashed by the Islamic terror group talk about their departure from their Yazidi identity and their desire to carry out a suicide attack for the Islamic State.

The boys’ families, who confirmed their identities to The Foreign Desk, said they have had no information regarding their whereabouts, and this video is the first they have seen or heard from the boys since their abduction in 2014.

One of the boys, identifying himself in the video as Amjad, as-well-as by his Kunya, the noms de guerres frequently used by ISIS, “Abu Yusuf Sinjari,” describes how he left the ‘ignorance’ of his primitive Yazidi faith behind to join ISIS. He talks about studying sacred Islamic texts in the ‘sham’ (a historical name for Greater Syria) and choosing to carry out a suicide mission for the terror group.

“When we were in Sinjar, we worshipped the devil and we were without God… We were ignorant and not aware of concepts such as Halal and Haram,” he says looking into the camera.

A family source told The Foreign Desk the two brothers are Amjad and Asaad-Alyas Mahjo ages 11 and 12.

They were kidnapped when the Islamic State stormed the predominantly Yazidi town of Sinjar in August 2014, killing as many as 5000 Yazidi men in what has since become known as the Sinjar Massacre.

The father of the boys, along with four additional siblings, were also killed during the vicious massacre.

Following taped speeches showing the brothers brandishing their weapons and sporting shy smiles, the pair enter separate explosive-laden vehicles.

One of the boys sheepishly looks round to the camera filming from behind, peeking around as the camera captures a truck filled with explosives.

Islamic State video drones then capture the vehicle maneuvers and final moments of the kidnapped boys’ lives as they both carry out separate VBIED attacks.

Following the Sinjar Massacre, ISIS also rounded up thousands of Yazidi women and children, with many of the women being sold as sex slaves or given as concubines to Jihadis in exchange for battle victories.

A report last year claimed ISIS had created jihadi training camps for captured Yazidi children with estimates that up to 1,500 children, some as young as 6 were being forcibly converted to Islam for eventual use as child soldiers or to carry out suicide missions.

“If we are serious about the fight against Islamism and terrorism, then it must also be a cultural struggle.” — German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.

German authorities issued 105,000 visas for so-called family reunifications in 2016, a 50% increase over the 70,000 visas issued in 2015, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The 105,000 visas for family members were in addition to the 280,000 new asylum seekers who arrived in Germany in 2016.

Police say Sudanese migrants, many of whom were allowed to enter Germany without having their fingerprints taken, have “created a business model” out of social security fraud. Local officials have been accused of covering up the fraud.

An employee at a social security office handed her boss a file with 30 cases of suspected fraud. After he refused to act, she contacted the police. She was fired for “overstepping her authority.”

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble revealed that the migrant crisis would cost German taxpayers €43 billion ($46 billion) during 2016 (€21.7 billion) and 2017 (€21.3 billion).

The Bishop of Regensburg, Rudolf Voderholzer, said there could be no reconciliation between Christians and Muslims. Islam is a “post-Christian phenomenon, with the claim to negate the core content of Christianity,” he said.

January 1. Some 2,000 “highly aggressive” migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East gathered at the central train station in Cologne and the square in front of the iconic Cologne Cathedral, where mass sexual assaults occurred on New Year’s Eve 2015. A massive police presence consisting of 1,700 officers deterred mayhem. Police reported three sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve 2016, compared to more than a thousand on the same day in 2015.

January 1. In Berlin, at least 22 women were sexually assaulted during New Year’s Eve celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate, despite the presence of 1,700 police officers. Police initially reported six assaults, but after inquiries from local media raised that number. In Hamburg, at least 14 women were sexually assaulted. Police arrested three Iraqis, three Syrians, two Afghans, one Eritrean and one German-Russian.

January 2. Greens Party Leader Simone Peter accused the Cologne Police Department of racial profiling after a tweet referred to North African migrants as “Nafris.” The head of the DPolG, Ernst Walter, explained that “Nafri” is not derogatory but rather a technical acronym used by the police to refer to “North African intensive offender” (nordafrikanische Intensivtäter). “If a North African person is suspected of committing a crime, he is a ‘Nafri,'” Walter said. Cologne Police Chief Jürgen Mathies added: “From the experiences of the past New Year’s Eve, from experience gained by police raids as a whole, a clear impression has emerged here about which persons are to be checked. They are not gray-haired older men or blond-haired young women.”

January 2. Police in Saarland arrested Hasan A., a 38-year-old asylum seeker from Syria who solicited €180,000 ($192,000) in funds from the Islamic State in order to carry out a high-casualty terrorist attack in Germany. The prosecutor’s office in Saarbrücken said the man asked the Islamic State for the money to purchase eight vehicles (€22,500 each) which would be camouflaged as police cars, loaded with 400-500 kilos of explosives, and exploded into a large crowd. Hasan said he wanted the money to support his family in Syria, not to carry out attacks in Germany.

January 3. Amnesty International called for an investigation of the police in Cologne for the alleged “racial profiling” of North African migrants who were suspected of promoting violence on New Year’s Eve.

“They are driving us out of the Middle East,” declared Pope Francis on returning from Turkey.

“[I]t would be beautiful if all Islamic leaders, whether they are political, religious or academic leaders, would speak out clearly and condemn this because this would help the majority of Muslim people.” — Pope Francis, counseling Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

While this welcoming stance is in keeping with the fundamental beliefs of the Catholic faith, the Pope as the “Good Shepherd” has an obligation to protect his flock from the militants among the refugees.

Within the Catholic Church, there also exists a sub-dominant counter-melody that warns about Islamic hostility to the values of Judeo-Christian civilization.

Cardinal Sarah targets what he refers to as “Islam’s pseudo-family values which legitimize polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, and child marriage.”

At some point, the Catholic Church might raise the issue of persecution of Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries at international fora such as the United Nations. The Church also could publicly ask Muslims of good will to express their solidarity with the persecuted and request international organizations to intervene to protect Christians.

Given the centuries of hostility between Christendom and dar-al-Islam (the World of Islam), the Vatican’s caution may be understandable, but is ill-advised and no longer tenable.

Perhaps, in the light of the harm dhimmitude can do to both civic life and faith, the Catholic Church might re-assess its stance toward Islam from one of friendly engagement to cautionary disengagement. As radical jihadists continue to martyr Christians throughout the world, such a re-evaluation of Islam by the Vatican seems appropriate.

These hate crimes against Christians are occurring against a backdrop of fifteen centuries of hostile, relations between Christianity and Islam — from the Islamic takeover of Persia, the great Christian Byzantine Empire in Turkey, North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Greece and Southern Spain.

As Catholics comprise more than half of the globe’s two billion Christians, a sober reassessment of Islam by Rome could be of great import and attract more people to Christianity when, as with Brexit, they see that the Church is aligned with a reality they see every day with their eyes.

A decision by the Vatican to distance itself from trying to please Muslims, many of whom would presumably only be pleased by converting Christians to Islam, might even evolve into a more realistic understanding of the Islamic faith by the Catholic hierarchy. If the Church, on the other hand, is hoping to convert Muslims to Christianity, then we have two proselytizing religions, each trying to convert the other, but by different means.