Yesterday, alleged President Joe Biden bumbled his way through remarks in which he claimed credit for the fall of Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al Assad.
As we explained in our article “What’s Going On In Syria Explained” as the leading regional client of Russia and Iran, Assad’s ouster may look like a victory in the sense that anything that discomfits two of our enemies is good for us, but that is a shortsighted and shallow view of the world’s security situation.
The truth is that the real enemy in the Near East was not Bashar al-Assad, it is political Islam, and the only way to defeat it is to drop the fiction that “Islam is a religion of peace” and use all our national power to present an alternative worldview that undermines and eventually destroys Sharia-supremacism and Iranian “Absolute Wilayat al-Faqih” (Guardianship of the Jurist).
So, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Gen. Lloyd Austin and others can take “credit” and bear plenty of responsibility for what is happening in Syria, but what is happening is a disaster, not something to brag about.
The clearest indication of the scope of this disaster is the almost immediate persecution of Christians by the newly ascendent Islamist revolutionary government of Syria.
And there are reports and video of the desecration of churches, including the Hagia Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in Al-Suqaylabiyah, Syria.
And this from Damascus, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
“The coming days and weeks will be crucial for the fate of [the] Christian community," said Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, in a statement shared with The Christian Post. "Christians, with roots stretching back nearly two millennia, now face an uncertain and perilous future.”
The Christian Post further reported Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop Mor Boutros Kassis and other Christian leaders have been communicating through social media where they held prayers and liturgies. They are encouraging Christian residents to face the reality with awareness, courage and faith, he was quoted as saying.
Franciscan Father Bahjat Karakach, representing the Latin Church, acknowledged, “The Church knows no more than the people do.” It’s up to individuals and families to decide if they want to stay or leave Aleppo, he stressed. “No one can make it on behalf of another. We friars are staying and waiting to see how things unfold,” he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the Islamist faction, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, has pledged to protect civilians, including Christians. HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani visited Aleppo’s citadel and stated, “Aleppo has always been a meeting point for civilizations and cultures, and it will remain so, with a long history of cultural and religious diversity,” as reported by Al-Monitor.
Despite assurances, fears persist among Aleppo’s estimated 30,000 Christians, down from hundreds of thousands before the Syrian conflict began in 2011.
Switzerland-based group Christian Solidarity International responded to the assurance given by HTS, saying, “HTS’ ideology and history give religious minorities in Aleppo serious reason to doubt these promises.”
HTS has often targeted Christians throughout Syria in violent attacks and kidnappings, repeatedly killing Christian civilians and confiscating their property, CSI explained.
“In the Salafist worldview that animates HTS, Christians are not heretics to be destroyed (like the Alawites and the Druzes), but ‘people of the Book’ — followers of religions that were revealed before the coming of the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad. In lands ruled by Islam, they should be made dhimmis — a protected people who are kept in legal subjugation and pay an additional tax called the jizya,” CSI continued.
“Until now, HTS has avoided imposing dhimmi status on Christians in Idlib by referring to them as musta’min, or temporary residents,” the group acknowledged. “But how long will HTS maintain this distinction?” CSI asked.
We have a suggestion of what musta’min, or “temporary” residents’ status means to Syria’s ancient Christian communities means, it means that genocide or mass self-deportation are imminent.
The HTS led rebels captured Damascus a week after the takeover of Aleppo and Hama, and that resulted in the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. However, the "so-called 'opposition forces,'" Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are not the second coming of Thomas Jefferson and the bringers of western-style democracy to Syria, they are a "reconstructed remnant" of Islamic extremist groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
"Considered a terrorist organization, they have, in less than two weeks, ethnically cleansed the northwest of Syria — including Aleppo and beyond — of Kurds and Christians," Global Christian Relief President and CEO David Curry said. "Despite public protestations to the contrary, we can expect them to extend their campaign to the rest of the country."
Curry said that when the civil war in Syria began more than a decade ago, Christians constituted approximately 10% of the population, which was about 1.5 million people.
After years of constant fighting and persecution perpetuated by jihadist radicals, however, that number has dwindled to just 300,000.
Syria
Bashar al Assad
Hamas
Iran
Israel
ISIS
Muhammad al-Julani
Muhammad al-Jawlani
Levant Front
Russia
Political Islam
Sharia supremacy
General Lloyd Austin
Free Syrian Forces
Islamist State