RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/10/isis-caliph-dead-after-us-raid-daniel-greenfield/

Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, to whom Islamic terrorist groups around the world had sworn fealty to, is dead after US forces raided his family compound. In a seeming echo of Osama bin Laden’s death, Baghdadi exposed family members to risk by taking shelter among them, while ‘hiding out’ in an unlikely place, but likely, once again, under the protection of Sunni Islamist allies.

Idlib was really the last Sunni Islamist stronghold in Syria. Considering Turkey’s influence in Idlib and the longstanding rumors about ties between ISIS and Turkey, it’s not implausible that Erdogan’s Islamic terror state had been shielding the ISIS leader. If so, that would be a close repetition of the relationship between Pakistan and Osama bin Laden. It’s also less than impossible that recent US actions in Syria were part of a trade with Erdogan giving up the Caliph’s location, before the Russians and Syrians were likely to nail him anyway with their offensive, in exchange for getting the Kurds. But all that is just speculation.

The Caliph of ISIS is dead and that’s significant. He appears to have blown himself up with a suicide vest, but unlike Obama, President Trump was unlikely to have wanted him alive anyway. Obama had wanted to capture Osama and put him through a civilian trial.

No such agenda here.

Assuming al-Baghdadi is indeed dead, and if ISIS confirms as much (if they don’t, their allies will probably assume that he isn’t), this will affect the various pledges that Islamic terrorist groups around the world have made to ISIS. And the status of the Islamic State.

While Osama bin Laden was an important symbolic figure, the leader of ISIS had actually declared himself the Caliph. That significantly raised the theological stakes and convinced many Muslims that a new age was here. His death will bury that age for some terrorists.

The Islamic State was supposed to usher in a new era in history. That era is now dead. The endless war against the Jihad however goes on.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15078/iran-lebanon-soleimani

I think Soleimani is wrong to write-off Lebanon as a nation-state and reinvent it as an Iranian bridgehead. Having known Lebanon for more than half a century, I can tell him that there is such a thing as “Lebanese-ness” that transcends sectarian and political divides. The Lebanese look to the Mediterranean and the exciting possibilities of the modern world rather than the recesses of the Iranian Plateau under the mullahs with their antediluvian ideology. As a matter of taste, Lebanese-ness is closer to the beach than to the bunker.

The way the state-controlled media in Tehran put it, the wave of protests in Lebanon is about “showing solidarity with Palestine.” Photos of a dozen people burning Israeli and American flags in Beirut come with surreal captions about “Lebanese resistance fighters” calling for jihad against “baby-killing Zionists” and the American “Great Satan.”

What is certain is that the uprising has shaken the parallel universe created by Major-General Qassem Soleimani’s Madison Avenue depiction of Lebanon as the bridgehead for the conquest of the Middle East by Khomeinist ideology. Those familiar with Tehran’s propaganda know that the mullahs regard Lebanon as their most successful attempt at empire-building, worth every cent of the billions of dollars invested there.

The Iranian media often boast that Lebanon is the only country where the Islamic Republic controls all levers of power, from the presidency to security services, passing by the Council of Ministers and parliament. More importantly, perhaps, Tehran has forged alliances with powerful figures and groups within every one of the ethnic and sectarian “families” that constitute Lebanon.

In Iraq, Iran has to contend with the presence of powerful Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties and personalities that, while prepared to accommodate Tehran, refuse to act as puppets.

In Yemen, though dependent on Tehran’s money and arms for survival, the Houthis try not to be dragged into the Khomeinist strategy of regional hegemony.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15044/iraq-government-protests-christians

“The Iraqi government should accept the protesters’ demand for early elections, with a new electoral system to be organized and monitored by the UN: the current Iraqi electoral system is corrupt.” — Ashur Sargon Eskrya, head of the Assyrian Aid Society, to Gatestone.

“It’s time to pay attention. The country [Iraq] is riddled by protests by members of almost every ethnic or religious group, and the government is unstable and ineffective, with an uncertain future If the Iraqi regime were to collapse, most of the country that Americans fought so hard and long to liberate could become, de facto, a colony of Iran.” — Juliana Taimoorazy, founding president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, to Gatestone.

“We [Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac Christians] were the group most ruthlessly ethnically cleansed, right under the noses of US troops, as our people became the scapegoats for any angry Muslim fundamentalists who resented America’s policy. They treated us as honorary Westerners, but the West did nothing for us.” — Juliana Taimoorazy, to Gatestone.

“Now we are asking again for the right to self-governance and self-defense…. The answer for Iraq is still the one that doesn’t appeal to the powerful or the connected, but offers the best chance of civil peace: real, effective decentralization of political, military and economic power.” — Juliana Taimoorazy, to Gatestone.

Iraq’s security forces recently were joined by Iran-backed militias in a violent crackdown on anti-government protests. These protests have been taking place, since October 1, throughout much of the country as well as in Baghdad.

The mass demonstrations were sparked by widespread fury on the part of Iraqi youths at Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and what they view as his corrupt government’s failure to rehabilitate Iraq after its battle against ISIS and provide basic necessities, such as electricity, clean water and jobs. According to Amnesty International, activists and journalists have been brutally intimidated by Iraqi authorities and gunned down in the streets by snipers. The death toll has passed 180, with figures in the thousands for those wounded.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15079/persecution-christians-august

Boko Haram “has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.” — Staff writer, Christian Today, August 8, 2019.

“They asked him to deny Christ and when he refused they cut off his right hand. Then he refused [again], they cut to the elbow again. In which he refused, before they shot him twice, at the head, the forehead, the neck, and chest.” — Enoch Yeohanna, speaking on CBN News, August 29, 2019. Nigeria.

“Every year at least a thousand girls are kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam, even forced to marry their tormentors.” — Tabassum Yousaf, a local Catholic lawyer, quoted in Newsbook MT, August 12, 2019. Pakistan.

Hate for and Violence against Christians

Cameroon: Militant Muslims, allegedly affiliated with the Nigerian-based Islamic terror group Boko Haram, “reached new heights” of depravity. Boko Haram, after devastating the Christian village of Kalagari in a raid and kidnapping eight women, later released them but some had their ears “chopped off” (image here). The report adds that Boko Haram “has terrorised Christian communities in Nigeria for the last decade and has now splintered and spread its violent ideology into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”

Nigeria: On August 29, Chuck Holton, a CBN News reporter, aired a segment on his visit with Christian refugees who had fled Boko Haram’s invasions into their villages. Among the stories of death and devastation, the following, spoken by a young man, stood out: