Suicide bomber threatens ministry

(Photo courtesy of Freedom House)

Syria (MNN) ― [Note: The violence is growing. On average, 131 Syrians are killed each day. Assad troops continue to clash with Syrian rebel forces.

Lyndsey Gammage with Mission Network News had a chance to hear about the current situation in Syria from a representative of a ministry doing humanitarian aid work and evangelism there. Because the situation is so dangerous, we can’t name the organization, the correspondent, or go into detail about their project. But they’re doing great work for the name of Christ. Here’s the interview.]

Lyndsey: Syria. Kind of a hot topic right now, and you’re updated on a lot of the issues going on there and even some humanitarian aid work. Could you just tell us a little bit about the current events and what’s going on?

*Joe: Okay, thank you for this opportunity. I just got off the phone about half an hour ago with our contact [in Syria]. The people that are working on [our] project are all scattered. As a matter of fact, all the people that we have inside this country have been taken out. They’re not in the country anymore; they’re in neighboring countries. We had to close our big distribution effort [in a strategic location]. They were threatened by suicide bombers, and so they had to close everything down. So there is no distribution going on inside the country at the moment.

But we do have distribution in neighboring countries because of the refugees. You know, there are thousands of people. As I heard this morning, it’s a continuous stream of people now crossing the border into Lebanon and Jordan. It’s a devastating situation, but it’s an opportunity for us to be able to give out food packets and medical packets to these people. So we have two huge distribution efforts going on at the moment [outside Syria].... In both situations, [we] are working with established churches. While there are advantages and disadvantages of working with a church, one [advantage] is that you have a lot of volunteers helping you, and it’s a little bit more official--especially in [unnamed city] where the people could come onto the church compound and get packets where you could freely share whatever you want with them because it’s a Christian environment. In [another area], it’s not as easy because they go door-to-door, and they offer them a packet which contains food and medical supplies and some other materials that we hope they will be able to watch and read. But there’s an opportunity to talk to the people; there’s a personal contact. Mostly what the [volunteers] do is sympathize with the situation and find out what their real needs are. And then most of the time, they would offer to pray for them. Most of these people—although they are Muslims—would accept prayer. And of course. the prayer is in the name of Jesus.

Lyndsey: When exactly did your team have to pull out of Syria?

Joe: Two days ago they had to pull everybody out. The situation is escalating at an incredibly dramatic pace. They expect that in the next month or two...the violence is just going to escalate, and we don’t know how much of that is going to spill over into Israel because, as you see in the news, there are other countries supplying weapons to the radical groups [in Syria], and their aim is to take Israel out. So the thing is really in a very volatile situation at the moment.

Lyndsey: Now what would it take for your team to be able to go back into Syria and continue the distribution?

Joe: Well, as soon as things normalize. I mean, the people who have come out of there are all nationals. They love [Syria]. Their kids are in school there. So, as soon as the situation normalizes, they will go back. For now, they’re all out of the country. [The] people that have pulled out are all nationals; there are no westerners. We don’t have westerners working in that part of the world.

Lyndsey: The suicide bombers threatening: Is that troops with Assad, or is it the rebel forces, or is it just independents?

Joe: You know, we don’t know. It could be both. It could be from either side. You know what happens: if there’s an escalation of violence against the government…the radical Muslims in the country then use that position or situation to their advantage. We find in every country, when the violence starts breaking out, the next thing that happens is they start targeting Christians and churches. They start burning down. It happened in Egypt, it happened in Libya, it happened in Indonesia, it happened in Bahrain, all over the place. The minute there’s violence against the government, the radicals use that opportunity to start persecuting the Christians. I doubt [the threats] would be from the government because they normally wouldn’t [conduct] suicide bombings. It would probably be the radicals, which I think if you scratch a little bit on the surface you’ll find out its al-Qaeda that is behind all of this. So they just use the situation normally, and they take advantage of it because it’s chaos. The more its chaos and energy, they would be able to do stuff without being opposed or stopped. Normally the government, if a church is bombed, will sort of turn a blind eye, but they would still try and warn the people not to do it. But if you have energy like this and there’s chaos, then nobody even cares about that.

Lyndsey: How is your team encouraging the church in this time?

Joe: We help them like we are doing right now, channeling as much as we can in there to get them at least humanitarian aid as far as possible, to relieve the need. We try and uplift the people by praying with them, helping them. A lot of times we would evacuate people out of the refugee camp or where they are and take them to a hospital because they don’t have transportation. We could take children and people that are wounded or sick and help them get medical treatment.

Lyndsey: And how can other Christians be praying?

Joe: Our staff has a huge prayer network going on all over the world and is praying for the situation.

Lyndsey: Well, thank you so much for talking with us today about this. Is there anything you wanted to add, anything that I missed?

Joe: No, this is the information I have at the moment.... I think from what I’ve said now, it should be okay. We mentioned cities and names of places, but it shouldn’t be a problem as long as we do not connect it with people, names, or with the specific product.... That’s a huge security risk.

Lyndsey: Will do. I’m Lyndsey Gammage with Mission Network News.

*Correspondent’s name changed for security reasons.

Another Church in Jos, Nigeria Hit by Suicide Bombing

At least three dead in blast by suspected Islamic terrorists.

JOS, Nigeria, March 11 (CDN) — Two weeks after a suicide bomb attack by the Islamist sect Boko Haram during a church service here left at least three Christians dead, a similar blast during a Catholic Mass today killed at least three people.


As in the Feb. 26 bomb blast outside the church walls of the Church of Christ in Nigeria service, security personnel action apparently forced the suspected Islamic extremists approaching St. Finbar’s Catholic Church in Rayfield, an affluent area of Jos, to detonate their bomb before their car reached the sanctuary where worship was taking place, eyewitnesses said.


At Jos University Teaching Hospital, 14 people were reportedly receiving treatment for wounds following today’s explosion, which damaged the church’s roof, windows and a portion of a fence surrounding its compound. Others received treatment and were released.


Damian Babang, 26, a parishioner at the church, told Compass that he had just completed a reading during the service when he heard the explosion.


“The next thing I saw was the ceiling of the church falling on us and cries of people struggling to get out of the church,” he said. “Many people are injured, and many have died. I cannot say how many died or injured, but I saw dead bodies being carried away, as well as the injured.”


Babang, visibly traumatized as he spoke inside the church building, said he did not understand why churches have become targets of Muslim terrorists.


Retaliatory attacks by Christian youths reportedly took at least seven other lives today.


The Rev. Emmanuel Kundum told Compass that he had concluded the second Mass and left the third service to be conducted by another priest when he heard the explosion at 10:30 a.m.


“On getting outside, I saw members of our church rushing out from the church too – many were injured and others were dead,” Kundum told Compass.


The priest said he was unsure of the number of people killed, as both the dead and the injured were evacuated to various hospitals in Jos by workers of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Red Cross Society. At press time NEMA reported three bodies at the site, but it was not clear if those included the suicide bombers.


“It is very difficult for us to say how many of our parishioners that were either killed or injured,” Kundum said. “NEMA officials removed the dead and the injured to hospitals in the city. We are waiting for them to provide us with the details after calm is restored.”


St. Finbar’s is one of the largest Catholic parishes in Jos, with an average attendance of more than 3,000 worshippers each Sunday.


Jos, often described as a religious fault line between the north and the south, has been the site of numerous large-scale and isolated incidents of violence containing a religious component.


Suspected Islamic extremists detonated a bomb outside a church building in Suleja, Niger state, on Feb. 19, two months after Boko Haram Islamists killed 44 Christians and blinded seven in a Christmas Day church bombing in nearby Madalla. The Feb. 19 blast injured at five Christians.


Nigeria’s population of more than 158.2 million is divided between Christians, who make up 51.3 percent of the population and live mainly in the south, and Muslims, who account for 45 percent of the population and live mainly in the north. The percentages may be less, however, as those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World.


Boko Haram, the name given to the Islamic extremist group officially called Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad – “The People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad” – seeks to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) on Nigeria. The name Boko Haram translates loosely as “Western education is forbidden.”



END

Kazakhstan explosions come on the heels of new religion laws

Mission Network News: "Kazakhstan (MNN) ― Two explosions went off in Kazakhstan yesterday morning, killing one man and injuring no others. The man killed was reportedly a suicide bomber responsible for one of the two attacks.

The first blast apparently came from a trash bin and went off near an administrative building in Atyrau, according to Reuters news agency. The second went off near the offices of the city's prosecutors, breaking windows but harming no one except the bomber."

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