Iraqi Patriarch Expresses Urgent Need to Evacuate Christians to Baghdad “You tell me how to dialogue with a fanatic!!!”

Iraqi Patriarch Expresses Urgent Need to Evacuate Christians to Baghdad

“You tell me how to dialogue with a fanatic,” he says in an exclusive interview.

 

Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako says he is working with the government of Iraq to bring Christian refugees to Baghdad.

The majority of Christians who have been driven from villages and towns in the Plain of Nineveh are living in dangerous conditions, in makeshift  facilities that are now overflowing. In the Iraqi capital, there would be greater care in terms of hygiene, medical care and personal safety.

The Patriarch is also convinced that the American airstrikes are not enough to stop the pressure and advance of ISIS troops.

Your Beatitude, on CNN, Mark Arabo, a California businessman and leader in the Iraqi-American Christian community, spoke about a “Christian genocide” and a “systematic beheading of children” by ISIS, saying that “there’s a park in Mosul where they have beheaded children and put their heads on a stick.” Can you confirm or deny these reports?

Nothing like that. No beheadings. In Mosul money was stolen, but Christians have not been physically attacked. There was a large mass exodus and great panic in the Plain of Nineveh. People were literally driven out of their villages. There was one fatality—a man, during a tense moment as he was trying to cross a checkpoint.

Is it true that ISIS militants are asking Christians to pay a tax in order to save their lives and are likewise abducting women and taking them as their wives?

These two reports are true. Christian women have been abducted, and taxes have been demanded. In particular, these Islamic fanatics ask Christians for money to allow them to return to their homes. But the Christians don’t trust them. They are people who continually change their minds: they are unreliable. Perhaps today a Christian pays, returns home to stay there in peace, and tomorrow the militants attack him again, and one never knows what the consequences will be.

The government in Baghdad has accused ISIS Sunni jihadists of having thrown hundreds of Yazidis into mass graves, including women and children who were still alive. What can can you tell us about this?

What you’ve heard happened to the Yazidis is true. More than a thousand women have been kidnapped. A great many children are dead. The people have neither food nor water and they feel cut off from the world. They don’t know where to go or what to do.

In speaking about the crisis in Iraq, Archbishop Sivano Maria Tomasi, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations in Geneva, has said that “military action at this time is needed.” What do you think about US military intervention?

Partial strikes are not enough. The solution to the crisis needs a broader agreement, with the involvement of the Kurdish government and the Iraqi central government. Without an overall strategy, the dream of seeing the people return to their homes will not happen.

At this time, do Christians have the right to organize in order to defend themselves, or do you only recommend that they flee?
But how would they organize themselves? First, their numbers are greatly reduced—400,000-500,000 in all. Beyond this, the majority have fled their villages. They are scattered here and there. And then, considering the numbers and their current situation, they wouldn’t be able to raise a militia. And they are facing hardened extremists.
In your opinion, what will we see happen in the days to come?

I fear that the situation is worsening. There is a problem with the refugees and the humanitarian emergency, and another problem with the political order. For now I don’t see any prospects. The whole world must mobilize itself for the situation in Iraq; otherwise, a stable and permanent situation, in my opinion, will permanently slip away.

Is dialogue with the ISIS Jihadists out of the question?

You tell me how to dialogue with a fanatic? You find yourself in front a wall, that’s it! At the beginning of the crisis, I tried to speak to one of them, but it’s difficult, there’s no trust and they continually change their minds.

Is there a risk that the influence of these Islamic Jihadists will reach Baghdad?

There is a risk that they’ll find sympathy. It would be difficult for them to reach Baghdad, but it’s not impossible.

How is the Catholic Church aiding the plight of the refugees?

In all the churches in the country, schools, dormitories, places to eat have been set up. In every city, in every village in the vicinity of the areas attacked by the militia, the reception areas are full. Now the best thing to do is to transfer as many people as possible to Baghdad. I am in contact with the government to make this happen.

How would this transfer need to take place?

The land routes are closed. The only possibility are airplanes. Here in the capital we have more space to accommodate these poor people who are likely to become exhausted at any moment. There are also hospitals and places to treat them. There are already 20 families who have arrived from that hell, but we hope to welcome more shortly.

What are the refugees telling you?

I have heard their testimonies and they are tragic. But I had already been in contact with them, during my visits to Irbil and the villages that had been attacked, with several Christians from those places. To hear it seems like a  return to the Middle Ages. My heart weeps in remembering such sad stories, which are marked only by fear and dread of being harassed, beaten and killed. They don’t have anything anymore, neither a house nor financial resources after years and years of sacrifice. But above all, they are afraid that this situation will last for a long time.

Iraqi Patriarch Expresses Urgent Need to Evacuate…

Convert, Leave or Die!! Christians have until tomorrow to leave, or face execution!

 

Prayer need!  Convert, Leave or Die!!

Islamic State sets new rules, raising possibility of martyrdom.

Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Saad Sirop of Baghdad has confirmed a troubling report from Mosul that the Islamic State is now presenting Christians in that city with a final ultimatum of conversion, subservience or death.
According to sources known to Aleteia, but kept anonymous due to security concerns, a number of mosques in the city of Mosul, and through loudspeakers, called on Christians Friday to leave the city. They said in their appeals that the reason was due to the rejection of the bishops to meet elements of the Islamic State to dictate terms to the Christians, which is to pay a special tax or convert to Islam.

Christians have until  tomorrow to leave, or face execution.

Bishop Sirop has confirmed the veracity of the report to Aleteia partner Aid to the Church in Need.

“We are speechless because what happened is really shocking,” he said this morning. “The Christians in Mosul for centuries and those families were suddenly torn away from their city, their home, their life. We are really worried about the future of Christians in this country…. In the last hours, the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have forced the few remaining Christians in Iraq’s second city to leave their homes. Desperate, Christians immediately fled but were stopped at checkpoints by militias who have looted cars and all their belongings and then summoned them to continue on foot. Most of the families headed to the North, in the city of Dahuk.”
The bishop said Christians in Mosul have never been driven from their homes as if they had no rights—until now.
Since yesterday, he said, the militia has asked Christians to convert to Islam or leave Mosul.
“Our worst fears are coming true, and we do not know how to react,” he said. He pleaded with the international community to exert pressure on the Iraqi government to find practical solutions.
“With a greater internal stability, there will be no place for these groups of fanatics who claim to govern our country,” he said. “And then you have to help these poor people without a home and robbed of all that he had. It’s really a tragedy.”
The Islamic State reportedly called Christians leaders to a meeting this week to apprise them of the rules of the caliphate, But  the leaders did not show up.
Then the Islamic State issued a communique to let them know that Christians would be given the chance to  convert to  Islam. If they did not want to do so , they would have to pay special taxes. And finally, i f they refused, “their destiny is the sword.”
The letter continued: “The prince of the faithful, Caliph Ibrahim, is allowing them however, to leave on their own, outside the limits of the Caliphate. They have until 12 noon (Saturday), and after that, there is nothing between us and them except of the sword!”
The ultimatum may actually be working for the Islamic State. Fides News Agency is reporting today that the  last Christian families still present in Mosul are leaving the city and are heading towards Erbil, Dohuk and other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan which are considered safer.
“This is confirmed by sources of the local Chaldean community to Fides Agency,” the report said. “The new exodus has accelerated in the past two days, after Sunni insurgents and militants of the Islamic Caliphate began to mark with letters of recognition the homes of Christians and Shiites. As reported by the website www.Ankawa.com, the evacuation of the last Christians is also due to the intensification of the bombing carried out by the military government on many areas of the city, especially at night. In many villages of the Nineveh Plain, the main emergency is currently represented by the suspension of water supply, made even more unbearable due to high temperatures.”

It may be the end game Christians have feared for some time, especially since militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took over the historic Christian center in northern Iraq in early June. Since then, things have gotten progressively worse for Christians. The Associated Press has also reported that the Islamic State has begun seizing the houses of Christian and Shiite families who fled Mosul and giving some of them to Sunni families uprooted from areas like Tikrit and Diyala. “They mark these houses with signs reading Islamic State Properties,” AP reported today. “A resident of a north Mosul neighborhood said three masked gunmen knocked on his door Wednesday, asking whether he knew of any Christian or Shiite homes in the area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.”

http://www.aleteia.org/en/world/article/christians-reportedly-given-ultimatum-in-mosul-convert-leave-or-die-5835985908662272

US Special Forces arrive in Baghdad as Iraqi army prepares for fight to repel ISIS

 

US Special Forces arrive in Baghdad as Iraqi army prepares for fight to repel ISIS after militants captured ALL country’s western border crossings and sit just 44 miles from capital

• U.S. forces pledged by President Obama to Iraq have arrived in Baghdad
• They will be advising Iraqi troops on how to combat the ISIS insurgency
• ISIS militants have taken control of country’s borders with Syria and Jordan
• Fighting has come as close to Baghdad as Fallujah, just 44 miles to the west
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insists deployment is ‘not intervention’Nearly half the 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces expected to go to Iraq are now in Baghdad to help Iraqi forces combat Sunni militants, the Defense Department has said.

 

The arrival of U.S. forces was announced as combatants with the ISIS took control of all border crossings with Syria and Jordan. ISIS insurgents have gained control throughout most of northern Iraq, but Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim Atta says all towns on the road between Samarra and Baghdad are still under its control.  However, ISIS militants are fighting in towns as close as Fallujah, less than an hour away to the west. 

Getting closer: ISIS has taken control of the towns Al Waleed, Trbeil and Qaim, erasing Iraq’s border with Syria and Jordan. The Sunni combatants are fighting in towns like Fallujah, less than an hour away from Baghdad

Kingmaker: Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, right, shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the presidential palace in Irbil yesterday. Kerry insists the deployment of U.S. forces is ‘not intervention’

Yesterday U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged leaders of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region to stand with Baghdad and played down the deployment of American military forces, saying it does not equate to ‘intervention’. Speaking to U.S. journalist Andrea Mitchell, Kerry called the deployment an ‘advisory’ mission, which includes ‘planning, advising, some training and assisting’.   ‘We are not here in a combat role. We are not here to fight. And the president has no intention – none whatsoever – of returning American combat troops in Iraq to go back to where we were,’ he said. On Capitol Hill, senators who left a closed briefing with senior Obama administration officials expressed hope Iraq could soon form a new government, perhaps in the next week, facilitating greater U.S. military action against ISIS. Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who attended that meeting, backed what he described as an advancing American strategy.

Nowhere to go: Men and women stand in a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught-up in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul yesterday. Tens of thousands of people have now fled Iraq’s second largest city

Displaced: Children walk with bottles of water in a field beside the temporary refugee camp outside Mosul. Their families fled the city after it was overrun by ISIS militants earlier this month

At the Pentagon, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters the troops in Baghdad included two teams of special forces and about 90 advisers, intelligence analysts, commandos and some other support personnel needed to set up a joint operations center in the Iraqi capital.  Another four teams of special forces would arrive in the next few days, Kirby said. Those troops, added to the approximately 360 other U.S. forces that are in and around the embassy in Baghdad to perform security, would bring the total U.S military presence in Iraq to about 560. Kirby also said the U.S. was conducting up to 35 surveillance missions over Iraq daily to provide intelligence on the situation on the ground as Iraqi troops battle the aggressive and fast-moving insurgency. President Barack Obama last week announced he would send as many as 300 advisers into Iraq to assess and advise Iraqi security forces.  Part of that plan involved setting up two joint operating centers — one in Baghdad and the other in northern Iraq, where a lot of the fighting has taken place.

Support: Nearly half the U.S. military advisers pledged by President Obama to aid Iraq are now in Baghdad setting up operations to help combat the ISIS insurgency. Pictured above are Iraqi volunteers in Karbala The teams, largely made up of Army Green Berets, will evaluate the readiness of the Iraqi troops and their senior headquarters commanders in an effort to determine how best the U.S. can bolster the security force and where other additional advisers might be needed. Kirby said the initial assessments from the teams could be completed in the next two weeks to three weeks, but he said there was no timeline for how long the troops would be in Iraq. ‘I don’t have a fixed date for you as a deadline or an end date, but it’s very clear this will be a limited, short-term mission,’ he said. He said the insurgency was well organized and aided by foreign fighters and Sunni sympathizers in the country. The briefing for all senators Tuesday evening was led by Anne Patterson, the top U.S. diplomat for the Mideast, and included military and intelligence officials. ‘There is some hope that a new government can be formed fairly soon,’ Graham told reporters afterward. He said U.S. airstrikes probably would be necessary at some point, but accepted the Obama administration’s rationale that first a more inclusive Iraqi government must be formed that peels off moderate Sunnis. Graham said the U.S. could start hitting the Sunni extremists at their bases in Syria, however. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly urged U.S. action against the rebels’ commanders and supply lines. ‘This is not about saving Iraq or saving the government of Iraq or about building a country in Iraq,’ Rubio said. ‘That’s a long-term goal for the Iraqi people. This is an urgent counterterrorism situation that our country faces. It grows more dire by the moment. Our options become more limited by the moment.’ Both senators stressed the need for the U.S. to help defend Jordan. Graham said the threat of extremists extending their efforts from Syria and Iraq into Jordan was made very clear by the administration.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2667767/US-forces-flow-Baghdad-assess-Iraq-troops.html#ixzz35f987KHk