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BELEAGUERED SYRIAN CHRISTIANS FEAR FUTURE
Haaretz, Israel
Oct 28 2013
Islamic extremists' recent targeting of Syria's Christian community
is making it difficult to stay on sidelines of civil war.
By The Associated Press | Oct. 28, 2013 | 9:11pm
Sami Amir is used to the deep echoing rumble of the Syrian army
artillery pounding rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus. It's
the thump of mortars launched from an Islamist-controlled neighborhood
that scares him to death.
The mortars have repeatedly hit in his mainly Christian district
of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly killing at least 32 people and
injuring dozens of others the past two weeks.
"You don't know when and you don't know where they hit," says Amir,
a 55-year-old Christian merchant. "Life here is often too difficult."
Rebel shelling into the capital has increasingly hit several
majority-Christian districts, particularly al-Qassaa, with its
wide avenues, middle class apartment blocks, leafy parks, popular
restaurants and shopping streets busy with pedestrians.
The shelling and recent rebel assaults on predominantly Christian
towns have fueled fears among Syria's religious minorities about
the growing role of Islamic extremists and foreign fighters among
the rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad's rule. Christians
believe they are being targeted - in part because of the anti-Christian
sentiment among extremists and in part as punishment for what is seen
as their support for Assad.
Though some Christians oppose Assad's brutal crackdown on the
opposition and the community has tried to stay on the sidelines in the
civil war, the rebellion's increasingly outspoken Islamist rhetoric
and the prominent role of Islamic extremist fighters have pushed them
toward support of the government. Christians make up about 10 percent
of Syria's 23 million people.
"When you bring a Christian and make him choose between Assad and the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the answer is clear," said Hilal
Khashan, a political scientist professor at the American University
of Beirut, referring to the Al-Qaida branch fighting alongside the
rebels. "It doesn't need much thinking."
The rebels have targeted other Syrian minorities, particularly
Alawites, the Shiite offshoot sect to which Assad belongs and which is
his main support base. Altogether, ethnic and religious minorities
- also including Kurds and Druze - make up a quarter of Syria's
population. The majority, and most rebels, are Sunni Muslim.
But Christian areas have recently been the focus of fighting.
A week ago, rebels from the Al-Qaida-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra
attacked the Christian town of Sadad, north of Damascus, seizing
control until they were driven out Monday after fierce fighting with
government forces. The rebels appear to have targeted the town because
of its strategic location near the main highway north of Damascus,
rather than because it is Christian.
Still, SANA reported Monday that the rebels in Sadad vandalized
the town's Saint Theodore Church, along with much of Sadad's
infrastructure.
Similarly, thousands fled the ancient Christian-majority town of
Maaloula when rebels took control of it last month, holding it for
several days until government forces retook it. With rebels in the
hills around the town, those who fled are still too afraid to return.
Two bishops were abducted in rebel-held areas in April, and an Italian
Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, went missing in July after
traveling to meet Al-Qaida militants in the rebel-held northeastern
city of Raqqa. None has been heard from since.
In August, rebel gunmen killed 11 people in a drive-by shooting in
central Syria as Christians celebrated a feast day. Activists said
at the time that many of those killed were pro-government militiamen
manning checkpoints.
Al-Qaida-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated churches in
areas they have seized. In Raqqa, militants set fires in two churches
and knocked the crosses off them, replacing them with the group's
black Islamic banner. Jihadis also torched an Armenian church in the
northern town of Tel Abyad on Sunday, according to the Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group that tracks
the war through a network of activists on the ground.
The apparent deliberate campaign against Christians and other
minorities have stoked worries in Washington and many European capitals
over providing advanced weaponry to the mainstream opposition Free
Syria Army, amid fears the arms will end up in the hands of extremists.
Christians in Damascus are convinced that extremists are deliberately
targeting their neighborhoods as rebels battle government forces
trying to uproot them from the towns they control outside the capital.
Al-Qassaa is close to besieged rebel-held suburbs where Muslim
residents have pleaded for international help to save them from
starvation and constant government bombardment.
"Recently I noticed that every Sunday, they launch more than 15 mortars
a day," Amir said. "They are targeting specifically Christian areas."
The most recent shells in al-Qassaa hit Thursday on the doorstep
of a fashion clothing shop and next to a wall of a local hospital,
killing three young men and damaging a church and several cars,
which were left riddled by shrapnel.
Hundreds of Christians have fled al-Qassaa to other areas of
the capital or into neighboring Lebanon. Nationwide, some 450,000
Christians have fled their homes, part of an exodus of some 7 million
during the 2 ½-year civil war, according to Church officials.
Almost all the 50,000 Christians in the mixed city of Homs have
fled, and another 200,000 have fled the northern city of Aleppo,
both battleground cities. When insurgents occupied the strategic
central town of Qusair in 2012, about 7,000 Catholics were forced
out and their homes were looted.
Thousands who fled Maaloula have found refuge in the al-Qassaa and
other Christian districts of Damascus. Maaloula was a major tourist
attraction before the civil war, home to two of the oldest surviving
monasteries in Syria. Some of the residents still speak a version of
Aramaic, the language of biblical times believed to have been used
by Jesus.
Youssef Naame and his wife Norma, an elderly Christian couple from
Maaloula, described how bearded extremist Islamists stormed the
northeastern village early last month chanting "God is Great!"
"The jihadis shouted: Convert to Islam, or you will be crucified like
Jesus," Youssef said with a shaky voice in his daughter's al-Qassaa
apartment.
He said they were trapped with other Christians for three days in a
small house next to the town church, without food or electricity.
"There were snipers shooting everywhere, we were not able to move,"
he recalled. "We were so scared. I lost my speech."
Syrian Church leaders fear that Assad's fall would lead to an Islamist
state that would spell the end to the centuries-old existence of
Christians on Syrian soil.
"We are not taking any sides in the conflict," Bishop Luka, deputy
leader of the Syriac Orthodox Church, said at his headquarters in
the historic Damascus Old Town.
"We are standing alongside the country, because this country is ours,"
he said. "If the country is gone, we have nothing left. Nothing will
remain of us. "
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.554911
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Haaretz, Israel
Oct 28 2013
Islamic extremists' recent targeting of Syria's Christian community
is making it difficult to stay on sidelines of civil war.
By The Associated Press | Oct. 28, 2013 | 9:11pm
Sami Amir is used to the deep echoing rumble of the Syrian army
artillery pounding rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus. It's
the thump of mortars launched from an Islamist-controlled neighborhood
that scares him to death.
The mortars have repeatedly hit in his mainly Christian district
of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly killing at least 32 people and
injuring dozens of others the past two weeks.
"You don't know when and you don't know where they hit," says Amir,
a 55-year-old Christian merchant. "Life here is often too difficult."
Rebel shelling into the capital has increasingly hit several
majority-Christian districts, particularly al-Qassaa, with its
wide avenues, middle class apartment blocks, leafy parks, popular
restaurants and shopping streets busy with pedestrians.
The shelling and recent rebel assaults on predominantly Christian
towns have fueled fears among Syria's religious minorities about
the growing role of Islamic extremists and foreign fighters among
the rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad's rule. Christians
believe they are being targeted - in part because of the anti-Christian
sentiment among extremists and in part as punishment for what is seen
as their support for Assad.
Though some Christians oppose Assad's brutal crackdown on the
opposition and the community has tried to stay on the sidelines in the
civil war, the rebellion's increasingly outspoken Islamist rhetoric
and the prominent role of Islamic extremist fighters have pushed them
toward support of the government. Christians make up about 10 percent
of Syria's 23 million people.
"When you bring a Christian and make him choose between Assad and the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the answer is clear," said Hilal
Khashan, a political scientist professor at the American University
of Beirut, referring to the Al-Qaida branch fighting alongside the
rebels. "It doesn't need much thinking."
The rebels have targeted other Syrian minorities, particularly
Alawites, the Shiite offshoot sect to which Assad belongs and which is
his main support base. Altogether, ethnic and religious minorities
- also including Kurds and Druze - make up a quarter of Syria's
population. The majority, and most rebels, are Sunni Muslim.
But Christian areas have recently been the focus of fighting.
A week ago, rebels from the Al-Qaida-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra
attacked the Christian town of Sadad, north of Damascus, seizing
control until they were driven out Monday after fierce fighting with
government forces. The rebels appear to have targeted the town because
of its strategic location near the main highway north of Damascus,
rather than because it is Christian.
Still, SANA reported Monday that the rebels in Sadad vandalized
the town's Saint Theodore Church, along with much of Sadad's
infrastructure.
Similarly, thousands fled the ancient Christian-majority town of
Maaloula when rebels took control of it last month, holding it for
several days until government forces retook it. With rebels in the
hills around the town, those who fled are still too afraid to return.
Two bishops were abducted in rebel-held areas in April, and an Italian
Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, went missing in July after
traveling to meet Al-Qaida militants in the rebel-held northeastern
city of Raqqa. None has been heard from since.
In August, rebel gunmen killed 11 people in a drive-by shooting in
central Syria as Christians celebrated a feast day. Activists said
at the time that many of those killed were pro-government militiamen
manning checkpoints.
Al-Qaida-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated churches in
areas they have seized. In Raqqa, militants set fires in two churches
and knocked the crosses off them, replacing them with the group's
black Islamic banner. Jihadis also torched an Armenian church in the
northern town of Tel Abyad on Sunday, according to the Britain-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group that tracks
the war through a network of activists on the ground.
The apparent deliberate campaign against Christians and other
minorities have stoked worries in Washington and many European capitals
over providing advanced weaponry to the mainstream opposition Free
Syria Army, amid fears the arms will end up in the hands of extremists.
Christians in Damascus are convinced that extremists are deliberately
targeting their neighborhoods as rebels battle government forces
trying to uproot them from the towns they control outside the capital.
Al-Qassaa is close to besieged rebel-held suburbs where Muslim
residents have pleaded for international help to save them from
starvation and constant government bombardment.
"Recently I noticed that every Sunday, they launch more than 15 mortars
a day," Amir said. "They are targeting specifically Christian areas."
The most recent shells in al-Qassaa hit Thursday on the doorstep
of a fashion clothing shop and next to a wall of a local hospital,
killing three young men and damaging a church and several cars,
which were left riddled by shrapnel.
Hundreds of Christians have fled al-Qassaa to other areas of
the capital or into neighboring Lebanon. Nationwide, some 450,000
Christians have fled their homes, part of an exodus of some 7 million
during the 2 ½-year civil war, according to Church officials.
Almost all the 50,000 Christians in the mixed city of Homs have
fled, and another 200,000 have fled the northern city of Aleppo,
both battleground cities. When insurgents occupied the strategic
central town of Qusair in 2012, about 7,000 Catholics were forced
out and their homes were looted.
Thousands who fled Maaloula have found refuge in the al-Qassaa and
other Christian districts of Damascus. Maaloula was a major tourist
attraction before the civil war, home to two of the oldest surviving
monasteries in Syria. Some of the residents still speak a version of
Aramaic, the language of biblical times believed to have been used
by Jesus.
Youssef Naame and his wife Norma, an elderly Christian couple from
Maaloula, described how bearded extremist Islamists stormed the
northeastern village early last month chanting "God is Great!"
"The jihadis shouted: Convert to Islam, or you will be crucified like
Jesus," Youssef said with a shaky voice in his daughter's al-Qassaa
apartment.
He said they were trapped with other Christians for three days in a
small house next to the town church, without food or electricity.
"There were snipers shooting everywhere, we were not able to move,"
he recalled. "We were so scared. I lost my speech."
Syrian Church leaders fear that Assad's fall would lead to an Islamist
state that would spell the end to the centuries-old existence of
Christians on Syrian soil.
"We are not taking any sides in the conflict," Bishop Luka, deputy
leader of the Syriac Orthodox Church, said at his headquarters in
the historic Damascus Old Town.
"We are standing alongside the country, because this country is ours,"
he said. "If the country is gone, we have nothing left. Nothing will
remain of us. "
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.554911
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress