https://www.frontpagemag.com/who-will-protect-syrian-christians/
It started with a suicide bomber.
On Sept. 4, 2013, a terrorist group launched an attack on a profoundly symbolic Syrian village.
“The dawn assault on the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula,” reported the Associated Press, “was carried out by rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group, according to a Syrian government official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime group.
“At the start of the attack, an al-Nusra fighter blew himself up at a regime checkpoint at the entrance to the village, said the Observatory, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists,” the Associated Press reported.
A story that ran on Sept. 6, 2013, in the London Daily Telegraph carried this headline: “Village that speaks the language of Christ taken by al-Qaeda.”
“The inhabitants are mostly Melkite Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who have historically lived peacefully alongside Sunni Muslims,” reported the Telegraph. “It is one of only three places in the world where Western Aramaic, a dialect of the language spoken by Christ, is still used.”
“‘They entered the main square and smashed a statue of the Virgin Mary,’ said one resident, speaking by phone and too frightened to give his name,” the Telegraph reported.
Maaloula, the Associated Press said, is “famous for two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria – Mar Sarkis and Mar Takla.”
“The stones are shaking,” a nun at the Mar Takla monastery told the Associated Press. “We don’t know if the rebels have left or not, nobody dares go out.”