A few days later, around August 10, online Arabic websites reported that the underage girl had happily been returned family—which turned out to be false . In fact, Randa’s father and uncle were at and pestering the police station the same day this false rumor began. A family friend responded by posting on social media the following message: “People, Randa has not been returned. Please stop promoting false rumors. Randa must be returned! Please copy and paste.”
Randa likely now joins countless Coptic Christian girls that have over the years been abducted, sexually abused, and forced to convert to Islam and marry their kidnappers. If she were to be “found” and returned to her family, no legal action will, per precedent, ever be taken against the abductors, even though Egyptian law is extremely harsh in such matters (up to 25 years imprisonment for abducting a minor female). But such is the reality of Egypt’s justice system when it comes to Copts.
This phenomenon is well discussed in a September 10, 2020 report by Coptic Solidary (CS). Fifteen-pages long and titled “‘Jihad of the Womb’: Trafficking of Coptic Women & Girls in Egypt ,” it documents “the widespread practice of abduction and trafficking” and estimates that there have been “about 500 cases within the last decade, where elements of coercion were used that amount to trafficking,” according to the UN’s own definitions , particularly per its “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children.”
The capture and disappearance of Coptic women and minor girls is a bane of the Coptic community in Egypt, yet little has been done to address this scourge by the Egyptian or foreign governments, NGOs, or international bodies. According to a priest in the Minya Governorate, at least 15 girls go missing every year in his area alone. His own daughter was nearly kidnapped had he not been able to intervene in time.
Why so many officials help in the abduction and forced conversion of Christian girls and women—or at the very least look the other way—“can be traced back to the second article of the Egyptian Constitution.” Its states that “Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language. The principles of Islamic Sharia are the main source of legislation.”
The rampant trafficking of Coptic women and girls is a direct violation of their most basic rights to safety, freedom of movement, and freedom of conscience and belief. The crimes committed against these women must be urgently addressed by the Egyptian government, ending impunity for kidnappers, their accomplices, and police who refuse to perform their duties. Women who disappear and are never recovered must live an unimaginable nightmare. The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt. There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence. If there is any hope for Coptic women in Egypt to have a merely ‘primitive’ level of equality, these incidents of trafficking must cease, and the perpetrators must be held accountable by the judiciary.
The persecution Christians experienced in just one month under Islam.
This report was first published by the Gatestone Institute . Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of June, 2021:
Pakistan
The Rape, Forced Conversion, and Child Marriage of Christians
A Muslim father-of-four abducted a 13-year-old Christian girl , forced her to convert to Islam, and then “married” her. According to the father of Nayab Gill, when the beauty school she was attending shut down due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Saddam Hayat, a local Muslim who ran his own beauty shop, “told me that rather than wasting time, Nayab should learn salon skills to help her in supporting the family financially. He even offered to pick her up from home and drop her off after work, assuring us that she was just like his daughter.” He had also promised to pay the girl Rs.10,000 (US$63) per month for her services, but stopped paying her after a couple of months. When the girl went missing on May 20, her frantic parents turned to Hayat, who claimed not to know where she was, and kindly offered to help them find her, including by instructing Nayab’s simple and trusting mother to fill out the missing person’s report in a way that did not implicate him.
“On May 26, we were informed by the police that Nayab was in the Darul Aman [women’s shelter] since May 21,” her father continues . “In an application submitted to a magistrate’s court, Nayab claimed she had willfully converted to Islam a month ago …” According to this application, Nayab also claimed to be 19-years-old, and an Islamic marriage certificate was registered on May 20 claiming she had married Hayat. That same day the family managed to meet with Nayab at the women’s shelter. She told her grandmother that she wanted to go home and was willing to sign anything to do so. At that point, her “husband” and the police—having been notified by a shelter staffer that Nayab was in direct contact with her family—barged in and forcibly separated them. On the following day, a visibly battered Nayab appeared before court and reaffirmed that she was 19-years-old and had converted to Islam of her own free will. “Our lawyer did not show up at the hearing, so my wife and I directly approached the judge and presented all official documents to prove that my daughter was born on Oct. 16, 2007, which makes her 13 years and seven months old,” her father explained .
We told the judge that she was lying about her age under duress. She had bruises on her face, and her eyes were also red, which should have caught the judge’s attention, but he ignored it…. [In the end] Judge Jameel relied solely on Nayab’s statements made under obvious threat, rather than official documents, and failed to order an ossification test to determine her age…. My mother [the girl’s grandmother] collapsed in the courtroom as soon as the judge gave his order, and while we were attending to her, the police quietly spirited Nayab away.
In a separate incident, a group of Muslims abducted a Christian teenager, drugged and held him captive for five days, and repeatedly raped and tortured him , before dumping him in a desolate region. Danish Masih, 17, vanished on June 6. Although his father immediately reported his son’s disappearance to police, they showed no interest and failed to act. Discussing this incident, a local human rights activist said , “As Christians we are a minority and we are alone. For us there is no justice and no equal rights.” No one has since been arrested. According to the report , “Danish’s is not an isolated case. Violence against Christians in Pakistan is commonplace,” and includes a “rising number of abductions, child sexual abuses, forced conversions and forced marriages.”
In another incident, a young Christian woman was beat and raped in her home for refusing to convert to Islam and marry her rapist. Neelam Masih shared her experiences in a June 7 report . She was home alone when Faisal Basra “entered my home at gunpoint.”
[He] dragged me to my bedroom and began to punch and kick me. He threw me on the bed and started to rape me. He demanded I marry him and convert to Islam. I refused. I am not willing to deny Jesus and he said that if I would not agree he would kill me. He hit me on the face with his pistol and I shouted and screamed and tried to escape but he kept pulling me back, dragging me by my hair.
Eventually Neelam’s neighbor, who is also her second cousin, heard her cries and came rushing to the house, at which point the rapist fled into the night. Neelam, who is studying for a Master of Philosophy degree, said that, as the only educated Christian woman in her village, she is committed to speaking out against oppression and abuse, despite “reports that friends and family” of the Muslim rapist “are trying to hunt her down and kill her for standing up to him.”
I want the world to know what happened to me… I am determined to struggle for my faith, my life and my community…. My family is very poor. My mother has two jobs as a sweeper and has done everything she can for my education and it is very important that I stand up for my community.
“Neelam is a very brave woman,” said her lawyer, adding that it is “very unusual” for rape victims to go public in Pakistan:
Struggling against this man has taken great courage…. Most girls feel ashamed and submit to the demands of the attacker. They don’t want to tell anyone. They are usually easily threatened. But Neelam remains faithful to Jesus and is determined to tell her story to bring an end to attacks on Christian girls and young women.
In yet another incident, a group of Muslim men led by one Muhammad Akbar—a man known to have kidnapped Christian women before—abducted a Christian mother of five . She spent over 20 days in captivity being drugged, raped, and beaten. Discussing her ordeal, her husband said during an interview in between tears,
We are poor and Christian therefore the police are not taking any action against the abductor, and because he has heavily bribed the police. But I want justice for my wife. I want all the kidnappers arrested and punished for their crimes so they can stop kidnapping more Christian women.
Finally, according to a June 24 report , a “Muslim doctor forcefully converted a 13-year-old Christian girl to Islam,” so she could “work in their family kitchen.” The doctor was initially looking to employ two girls in his house. An impoverished Christian family with eight children sent two of their daughters, aged 13 and 11, to work there. The agreement was that they would be paid Rs.10,000 per month (US$63); and although this was a live-in job, the girls’ family could visit them. At the end of the month, however, Dr. Altaf only paid them Rs.3,000 (US$19). The poor family had no choice but to accept it. But matters soon worsened. According to the report ,
Neha and Sneha worked there for four years, during this time they started complaining about mistreatment by the family, who would swear at them and even physically assault them. The girls were being treated like slaves and were hardly allowed to meet their parents. They told the family that they wanted to go back home and live with their family, but Dr Altaf did not allow them to leave.
Both girls were missing their family. Sneha [aged 11] fell ill and wasn’t any help to Dr Altaf’s family therefore they agreed to send her back to her parents, but they were not willing to return Neha [aged 13].
Masih requested that Dr Altaf return his oldest daughter too as he was not willing to leave his daughter behind, but Dr Altaf told him that Neha had embraced Islam therefore she could not live with him.
It was a shocking revelation for Masih and [he] refused to accept it. Dr Altaf explained that since they were Muslims, it was not possible for them to allow any non-Muslim to enter the kitchen and touch their food items and kitchen utensils.
Dr Altaf dropped another bombshell on Masih, telling him they had mistakenly overpaid him, 275,000 (US$1,750) and until you pay it back, he won’t be able to get his daughter back.
“Perhaps Pakistan is the only country where such crimes are happening on a daily basis under the cover of Islam,” said one human rights activist while discussing this incident. “It cannot be justified at any cost that a young girl was converted to Islam against her will and without her parents’ knowledge and now she cannot be returned to her parents because her parents are Christians.”
Uganda: Death and Destruction for Christians
On June 11, a Muslim imam slaughtered a 70-year-old Christian pastor . Pentecostal bishop, Francis Obo, was killed after a group of Muslims dressed in Islamic garb stopped him and his wife as they were returning home in the evening after grocery shopping. The slain’s wife, Christine, said the men accused Francis of being an “infidel” who causes Muslims to leave Islam and that, accordingly, “Today Allah has judged you.” One of the assailants told her to go away because “Today, it is a day for your husband,” she said . “As I moved a few meters in a hurry trying to save my life, I heard a little noise and wailing from my husband and realized that his life was in danger.” She ran home, “trembling and unable to speak, and her children took her to a hospital where she was treated for shock” On regaining consciousness in the early morning, she told her eldest son what had happened; he and some other siblings went to search for their father where she last saw him. “Reaching there, they were shocked and fearful as they found a big number of Christians and relatives gathered around the dead body mourning their bishop after being murdered by Muslims,” she said . Police arrested suspect Imam Uthman Olingha, for having blood splattered on his clothes, and another Muslim. An officer later told the family that “Olingha openly confessed that he can’t regret that he killed the bishop because he did it in the cause of Allah’s word to kill all infidels who mislead Muslims.” The murderer added that “Allah will be with him in jail, but the kafiri [infidels] deserved the killing.” Bishop Francis is survived by his wife Christine and 13 children. He oversaw 17 churches in the area and was active is spreading the Gospel among Muslims—hence why he was targeted.
In a separate but similar incident, the Muslim employer of Fred Isiko, a Christian evangelist, had him killed by assassins . Earlier, Fred had recorded his boss, Ashirafu Kasenyi, a Muslim sheikh, pressuring him to convert: “You need to convert to Islam if you are to remain as my employee,” Kasenyi says in a May 7 recording. Fred replies , “I am not going to leave Jesus Christ; better to resign than leave Christianity.” On the day he was killed, Kasenyi had sent Fred to fetch supplies from the local market. Fred had a Christian friend with him, Francis, who explains what happened next:
As we were about to reach the trading center, three people stopped us. They said that they have some information for Fred. So I moved at a distance, and immediately one of them removed a long knife and cut his neck as I fled for my life and reported the incident at Kagumu police post.
Police later confirmed that their suspect confessed that the Muslim employer had hired him for the killing.
Finally, the Muslim relatives of a recent convert to Christianity burned his family home down . After Louis Levi Baula, 46, had taken his 3-year-old son, who suffered from seizures and other symptoms, to the local imam several times, and paid him for prayers of healing, nothing changed. So he took him to a nearby Christian church where the prayers, Louis and his wife say, healed their son. “We went back home but did not tell anyone, except I shared with my mother-in-law about the prayers in church that made my child well, and that we were planning to go back to the church the following Sunday,” Louis said . “She kept quiet.” The next Sunday the family attended the worship service and thanked the church for the prayers that healed their son. When they returned home, more than 20 Muslim relatives were gathered outside their home. They began questioning them. One got very animated and began crying “Allahu Akbar.” “We thought that they were going to kill us,” the mother continues , “but they only warned us not to attend the church, and the meeting ended.” They initially stopped going to church, but then went again. On returning home that Sunday, they found three of their goats missing. “A [Muslim] relative named Hamisi told me that Allah had taken the goats,” Louis said . “I was scared by that statement and came back and told my wife.” She insisted they and their three children, ages 3, 6, and 10, must relocate.
As we were thinking of where to go, at around 9 p.m. we heard hens making a lot of noise in the kitchen, and when I came out, I saw smoke and flames going up the roof, and I went back and told my wife that we are dying. We picked up our children and went out very fast, and within a short period my brothers, sisters and Muslim neighbors together with an imam arrived. The imam recited the Koran, and then later told my brothers to start destroying the house.
They watched helplessly as their Muslim relatives and the fire destroyed their home, property, and livestock. “The imam told us,” Louis continues , “that from today we were no longer one of the family members, that we were kafir [infidels] and that we should leave the homestead immediately to go and look for other infidels. He added that had it not been the law of our state, we would face death, but ‘go out of here since you have disobeyed Allah and his messenger.’”
The family fled with nothing but the clothes on their back and since last reported took refuge in another Christian’s home.
More Christian Slaughter in Africa
Mozambique : As the southeast African nation continues to fight off the Islamic State and other terrorists—nearly a million people have been displaced since 2017 and thousands slaughtered—in a June 28 report, Todd Nettleton of The Voice of the Martyrs USA explained how the terrorists mostly target Christians:
They say their goal is to set up a caliphate similar to ISIS in Iraq and Syria. And they are in some cases, literally going door to door. They ask, ‘Are you a Christian? Or are you a Muslim?’ If you’re a Christian, you’re killed. If you’re a Muslim, then you get the opportunity to quote some Quranic verses. And if you can quote them sufficiently, you save your life. Otherwise, you also get killed [including by crucifixion].
In another report on Mozambique from June 23, Amy Lamb of Open Doors said ,
Because of [the rise in Christianity], we’re seeing jihadist groups including those who are affiliated with the Islamic state, with al Shabab, with Boko Haram, al Qaeda…. [They are] organizing together in order to expand their territories throughout the African continent, and their goal is really to eradicate Christianity from this territory and, unfortunately, in some ways, it’s working. Even specifically from this northern part of Mozambique, an estimated 800,000 people have fled the region, and those who remain, including women, children, families, are facing starvation even if they’re spared from … violence.
Nigeria : Among several other lethal attacks on Christians, which claimed at least 17 Christian lives in the preceding days, Muslim Fulani herdsmen shot to death Precious Emeka Chinedu, a Christian doctor, on June 17 in Niger State. Five Muslims entered the hospital he worked in, seized and left with him, and then killed him and left his body in the bush. Discussing this incident, the doctor’s colleague, Baridueh Badon, said :
His killers, who are herdsmen, came to the hospital, specifically asked for him, didn’t harm anybody, collected his money, took him away, and killed him without asking for ransom. What did he do wrong? Your blood will keep crying until justice is done…. Everyone loved him, always smiling, and he was one of the most hard-working persons I have ever known. His hospital boomed because he was saving lives. If you had any problems, Emeka would be there to help.
Attacks on Churches
Democratic Republic of Congo : On Sunday, June 27, a makeshift bomb placed in the first row behind the altar exploded inside a Catholic church in Beni, leaving at least two injured. “I had just entered the church, I hadn’t even managed to sit down, I heard ‘Boom’… Blood started flowing from my mouth. I lost four teeth and was injured in the arms,” one of the injured women, Antoinette Kavira, explained from her hospital bed. The blast occurred shortly before the start of a confirmation ceremony. “They were targeting a large crowd because the ceremony would bring together children, their parents and the faithful,” said a church official. The Allied Democratic Forces, a terrorist group connected to the Islamic State, is believed to be responsible for the attack. While discussing this latest attack, local Bishop Paluku shed light on the devastation committed by the Islamic terrorists:
Armed groups are destroying schools and hospitals. Teachers and pupils are being killed. They are even killing the sick as they lie in their hospital beds. Not a day goes by without people being killed… We need centers where people can go for therapy. Many people are traumatized… A large-scale project is underway to Islamize or expel the indigenous populations. Anyone who has been kidnapped by these terrorist groups and managed to escape from them alive has told the same story. They were given the choice between death and converting to Islam.
Indonesia : In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 27, a Protestant church was vandalized and then set aflame in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. The fire was put out before doing extensive damage. Although evidence indicates that the arsonist acted purposefully—he first broke the church’s windows, vandalized the interior, and then torched the exterior, all under the helpful cover of darkness—police concluded that the suspect is mentally disabled, prompting some critics to say that the incident is being “played down .”
Separately, police arrested “11 suspected Islamic militants accused of plotting attacks at several Christian churches in easternmost Papua province,” says a May 31 report:
The arrests led police to another suspect who was detained Sunday, and led them to seize items from various locations including chemicals for explosives, modified air guns able to fire real bullets, jihadist books and documents on planned attacks.
Those arrested are members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and carried out a series of suicide bombings in Indonesia, including the bombing of a cathedral during Palm Sunday mass in March 2021 in Makassar, in which 20 were seriously wounded.
Finally, on June 19, ten Muslim schoolchildren, between the ages of 5 and 12, vandalized and desecrated a Christian cemetery , including by breaking the crosses off a dozen gravestones. After inspecting the damage done, the mayor of Solo laid the blame on the Islamic madrasa the children attend, and its teachers, “because they are teaching intolerance to their students.” He even urged police to prosecute the teachers and punish the students despite them being children. “Their actions were a gross act of intolerance.”
Pakistan : According to a June 22 report , a group of armed Muslim men attacked Harvest Church in the Punjab province. They broke in, shooting their guns in the air and severely beating the watchman present; several other Christians, men and women who were participating in evening prayers, were also hurt and hospitalized.
Egypt : Authorities recently barged onto and seized land belonging to an ancient Coptic monastery that was originally founded in the year 360—that is, nearly 300 years before Islam invaded and subsequently conquered Egypt in the seventh century. On May 30, authorities arrived with bulldozers and police at the Monastery of Saint Macarius in the deserts of Wadi al-Rayan in Fayum. They demolished a fence of the annex-farm and other structures—including a church—that had been erected by the monks living there. Several monks who protested or tried to prevent this state sanctioned destruction were arrested but shortly released. The reason for this takeover is that the monastery has been unable to pay the exorbitant levies that the government imposed on it a few years ago, in large measure due to the many government enforced COVID-19 restrictions, including on tourism, which would have helped keep the ancient monastery afloat. Commenting on this, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organization, said :
Whilst we recognise the right of the government to collect the agreed taxes, we also recognise that this monastery has been on this site for centuries and that the rental levies are a relatively recent expense in its historic existence. We encourage … a just settlement in this matter, including a reappraisal of the rent that the monastery is required to pay, which is a considerable financial burden even outside the unusual circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively impacted livelihoods in Egypt and across the world.
This is not the first time that the Egyptian government harasses the ancient Christian monasteries scattered in the deserts of Egypt—the one in question, St. Macarius, in particular. In 2015, the government initiated a project to build a road around Fayum. The proposed road would have crossed the territory around and threatened to destroy ancient heritage sites connected to the Monastery of St. Macarius.
In the end, the monks had no choice but to lay their bodies down before the path of the bulldozers, which arrived to the accompaniment of triumphant cries of “Allahu Akbar” from the company drivers and workers (pictures here ). Then, the monks were again arrested, though later released, and the road construction started, against their will.
Barbara Sharief builds political profile by participating with group harboring death squad leader.
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative . He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
In January 2011, Broward County, Florida Commissioner Barbara Sharief’s name was listed as a speaker at a conference sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), on ISNA’s conference schedule . When this author questioned her participation at an event put on by a radical Muslim group – ISNA was co-founded by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian and had been named by the US government a co-conspirator in the financing of Hamas – Sharief claimed she had rejected the request to speak at the conference and said she had “no idea” why her name was attached to it. Today, Sharief cannot speak at enough Islamist events.
Sharief, while still a Broward commissioner, is currently running for US Congress, in the Democratic Primary of the 2022 special election to replace Alcee Hastings, who was recently deceased. Since announcing her candidacy, Sharief has become a regular at functions sponsored and hosted by Muslim groups associated with terrorism. On August 8th, Sharief was the “Special Guest” at an event sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), not to be mistaken for ISNA. The event – a giveaway of cheap backpacks and school supplies to children – seemed innocuous. However, when it comes to ICNA itself, nothing is innocuous .
ICNA is the American arm of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), South Asia’s largest Islamist group. ICNA has spent 30-plus years harboring Ashrafuz Zaman Khan , a former death squad leader allegedly responsible for the murder of 18 individuals. In July 2014, ICNA co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami. In March 2000, ICNA asked its followers to provide “material support” to Chechen militants linked to al-Qaeda. The Public Relations and Government Affairs Coordinator of ICNA Relief USA, Ammar Ahmed , once joked about threatening to blow up a school. And ICNA continues to promote domestic violence against women on its Why Islam (WI) website.
At the ICNA event, Sharief was photographed with Rasheed Mahamad , the Assistant Secretary of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA). In July 2010, Muhamad’s AMANA was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for posting what the ADL called a “venomous” anti-Semitic video, featuring David Duke, on AMANA’s official website. Mahamad devotes a large part of his social media to Fadi Kablawi, the imam of the North Miami Islamic Center (NMIC). This past December, Kablawi referred to Jews as “the lowest of the lowest.” In March 2018, Kablawi told his congregation that the FBI considers him to be a member of ISIS.
On August 6th, two days prior to the ICNA affair, Sharief spoke at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR). Facing the audience, along with her, was ICBR co-founder Bassem Alhalabi . Alhalabi was a former assistant to and co-author of publications with Sami al-Arian, and in June 2003, he was charged by the US Commerce Department with illegally shipping a $13,000 thermal imaging device to Syria. ICBR fellow co-founder, Syed Ahmad , was a website designer for Hamas. In October 1999, ICBR posted a violently anti-Semitic essay on its website, referring to Jews as “enemies” and speaking of a day when Muslims will “fight the Jews and kill them.”
At the ICBR event, Sharief was photographed with Chief Operating Officer of ICNA Relief and Secretary of ICNA Florida Abdul Rauf Khan . The two have been photographed , at a number of her recent events. Khan is an avid fan of Louis Farakhan and has used his social media to target Jews and gays. In July 2014, Khan promoted on Facebook an anti-Semitic video labeling comedian talk show host Bill Maher, “Zionist Jew Bill Maher.” In April 2018, Khan posted the anti-gay propaganda piece, Why is it haram to actively be gay? It was produced by a media outlet that openly supports Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), a group that calls for gays to be put to death.
In June, Sharief was interviewed by Shafayat Mohamed, the imam of the Darul Uloom mosque, located in Pembroke Pines. In July, she spoke at the mosque. Darul Uloom has been a haven for high-profile terrorists . “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla was a student of Mohamed’s at Darul Uloom, and now-deceased al-Qaeda commander Adnan el-Shukrijumah was a prayer leader there. Mohamed, himself, was thrown off a number of community boards for his public vitriol against homosexuals. In February 2005, Darul Uloom published an article written by Mohamed, titled ‘Tsunami: Wrath of God,’ claiming that gay sex caused the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.
Also in June, the Muslim community hosted a town hall meeting for Sharief. Ironically, the moderator for the event, Khurrum Wahid, was the same moderator for the ISNA event she refused to speak at, over a decade earlier. Wahid is the National Chairman of Emgage Action, an Islamist group that attempts to disguise its sinister goals as political advocacy. Wahid, as well, has been an attorney for many of the high-profile terrorists that the US government has prosecuted, including members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and reportedly, Wahid himself was placed on a federal terrorist watch list in 2011.
In a poll that was conducted last month to see which Democrat candidates vying for Hastings’ seat were the most popular with Democrat voters, Sharief scored a close second, in a field of nine candidates (As of this writing, eleven Democrat candidates have qualified). Most likely, given the demographics of this congressional district, the winner of the November 2, 2021 Democratic Primary will be the next representative. And given Sharief’s courtship and participation with the radical Muslim community, her winning this seat should and must be seen as a threat to our nation
Yesterday, Biden's UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that there was "a very strongly worded press statement" expecting "the Taliban to respect women's rights."
While the Taliban had been prepped by the Qataris to say a lot of the right things, including claiming that they'll respect the rights of women within the very narrow boundaries of Islamic law, they apparently killed a woman for not wearing a burqa.
Even as Afghanistan's resurgent Taliban pledged to respect "women’s rights" in a propaganda blitz Tuesday, fighters from the group shot and killed a woman in Takhar province after she went out in public without a burqa.
And in Kabul, Taliban vehicles packed with armed militants were recorded on video patrolling residential areas for activists and government workers. Gunshots can be heard as they accelerate down the street.
Longtime Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid held his first news conference Tuesday to state that the extremist group would honor women’s rights -- within sharia law
What the Taliban's official mouthpieces and even its leaders say doesn't matter all that much.
The Taliban is a Potemkin village. A lot of its fighters appear to actually be foreign Jihadists. (Again, something our intelligence agencies and military and NSC people should have been on. If there was a major flow of foreign fighters, as locals have reported, why were we not tracking it?) They're going to follow their own orders. And many of the so-called Afghan Taliban are their own militias with their own leaders who don't necessarily take orders and certainly not from Taliban press conferences. And the Taliban are fine with that.
Before and after 9/11, the Taliban tried to use plausible deniability to avoid any responsibility. They're still playing the same old game.
Report: Taliban Killing People Found with Bibles on Their Phones SHAH MARAI/AFP via Getty Images 5:14
The Taliban is killing people in Afghanistan they find with copies of the Bible on their mobile phones, a Christian non-profit denounced on Tuesday.
The Taliban, a radical Islamist terrorist organization, seized leadership of the country on Sunday after surrounding the nation’s capital, Kabul, prompting former President Ashraf Ghani to flee. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001, when the United States invaded the country, and established a brutal regime that regularly persecuted political dissidents, religious minorities, women, and anyone considered to be violating Islamic law, or sharia.
According to SAT-7, an organization that broadcasts Christian programs to churches and Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, the Taliban is using “spies and informants” to persecute the Christian minority in the country.
“We’re hearing from reliable sources that the Taliban demand people’s phones, and if they find a downloaded Bible on your device, they will kill you immediately,” said SAT-7 North America President Dr. Rex Rogers told Religion News Service. “It’s incredibly dangerous right now for Afghans to have anything Christian on their phones. The Taliban have spies and informants everywhere.”
Other Christian nonprofits and ministries that specialize in assisting persecuted Christians around the world have been sounding the alarm as well, emphasizing the ruthless nature of Taliban leadership. A Christian contact of one Release International partner described the situation as “dire” in a report published Monday. Release International is a Christian ministry that also assists persecuted Christians around the world.
“Our brothers and sisters in Christ are telling us how afraid they are. In the areas that the Taliban now control girls are not allowed to go to school and women are not allowed to leave their homes without a male companion,” said Micah, a name assigned to him to protect his identity.
Even without the Taliban in power, Afghanistan was the second most dangerous place for Christians to practice their faith, behind North Korea, according to the 2021 version of Open Doors’ World Watch List. Open Doors is a non-profit that monitors Christian persecution and aids its victims. The U.S. State Department similarly described the now-former Afghan government as extremely hostile to Christians.
A Taliban fighter (R) searches the bags of people coming out of the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
I n its 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, the State Department documented widespread death threats against Christians — most commonly from family members — and from officials. Christians in Afghanistan were forced to practice their faith underground and meet with small groups to worship.
Christians also faced significant legal persecution under the U.S.-backed government. Apostacy, the “crime” of renouncing Islam for a different faith, was punishable by death, imprisonment, or confiscation of property. Anyone who preaches another religion is subject to the same punishment. After conversion to a different religion, an individual was given three days to recant before they face punishment for apostasy.
“According to Sunni Hanafi jurisprudence, which the constitution states shall apply ‘if there is no provision in the constitution or other laws about a case,’ beheading is appropriate for male apostates,” the report states, “while life imprisonment is appropriate for female apostates, unless the individual repents.”
The State Department estimated Christians and other minority religious groups made up 0.3 percent of the population, adding that no reliable estimates of the Christian community exist.
Now that the Taliban has seized power again after a 20-year war, Christians who were already being forced to conceal their beliefs for fear of retribution are reportedly being targeted and murdered for their faith.
Afghan university students torch an upside-down cross, along with U.S. and Israeli flags during a demonstration against Israel and the U.S. in Nangarhar province at Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on November 26, 2012. (Noorullah Shirzada/AFP via Getty Images)
“Secret believers in Afghanistan are especially vulnerable. Prior to Taliban rule, they already had a very difficult time living out their faith, as they had to keep it secret from their families for fear of being shunned, or worse, killed,” said Brother Samuel, Open Doors Field Director for Asia.
“Now that the Taliban is in power, their vulnerability increases tenfold. It would be almost impossible to be a follower of Jesus in this country,” Brother Samuel continued. “We are monitoring the situation, but this is the time for us to ask God to have mercy not only on His people but on this country as a whole.”
The Taliban is infamous for monitoring the social practices of local populations and imposing ruthless punishments based on their interpretation of Islamic Law, or what observers call a “parallel system of justice,” according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom.
Open Doors noted that though the Taliban has promised a “more modern and reformed approach to government,” fear remains as to how it will impose sharia in the coming days and weeks.
“With the collapse of the government, the expansion of extremism, food shortages and the raging pandemic, Afghanistan needs urgent prayer from the global Church right now, more than ever,” the organization said .
Where Are the Gays? While the Taliban prepares to execute gays, Western gay-rights groups focus on “gender-reassignment surgery.”
Wed Aug 18, 2021 Bruce Bawer is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
In the last couple of days, as the Taliban consolidated its position in the Afghan capital, I had to go all the way to New Zealand to find an English-language gay news website which acknowledged that this lightning reconquista
Under the headline “Taliban Plan to Crush Gay Men to Death as they Close in on Capturing Afghanistan,” the Gay Express reminded readers that during the years of Taliban rule (1996-2001), adulterers were executed, thieves subjected to amputation, girls over 10 denied schooling, movie theaters closed, Western TV and music banned, women forced into burkas, and men ordered to wear beards.
In what seems a strict violation of the unwritten rule of Western gay media - i.e. never to say anything positive about the U.S., and especially about Republican governments in the U.S. - the Kiwi website noted that “[w]hile homosexuality has always remained illegal in Afghanistan, laws making it punishable by death were repealed when the United States invaded in 2001.”
But that, warned the website, will surely be reversed, given Taliban judge Gul Rahim’s recent assurance, in an interview with Bild
But that story was, as noted, an outlier in the gay Anglosphere . When I turned from the Gay Express to other sites, I found nary a word about the Taliban’s grim plans.
At Pink News (UK), the highlighted stories concerned the firing of a gay teacher by a Christian school in Sydney, Australia; a ban on Pride flags at another school in Newburg, Oregon; and the loss of a lawsuit by Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores, which had refused to let M-to-F transsexuals use its ladies’ rooms.
At the Advocate, the picture was much the same, with scream headlines about some C-list television actress who supposedly challenges stereotypes by being a lesbian Asian-American; about the teenage child of Enimem , who has come out as “genderfluid and bisexual”; and about a ruling by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that “gender affirmation surgery for legal minors” is “child abuse.” (Hurrah, by the way.)
Finally, at Gay Times (UK), the top news items were largely about celebrities you never heard of coming out as “queer” - which these days, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean gay. Or, for that matter, mean anything much at all. There was also a breaking story about allegations of lip-synching on a drag show on British TV.
Great journalism there, boys and girls.
Nor was there anything about gays in Afghanistan at the website of Human Rights Campaign, the nominal gay-rights organization - now basically a trans lobby - whose sleazy history of “whor [ing ] itself out” to Clintons , Obamas , and other Democratic politicians was illuminatingly outlined by Daniel Greenfield in an article on August 12.
Of course all this silence on gays in Afghanistan is in perfect accord with the unwritten rules regarding crimethink in the year 2021. If somebody dares to suggest that, say, Rachel Levine, Biden’s transsexual assistant health secretary, isn’t the most womanly of women, it’s a story deserving of scare headlines about anti-queer bigotry in post-Trump America.
But if judges in Afghanistan are having walls constructed so that they can be dropped on gay men - well, that’s their culture.
These gay news websites are staffed by woke types who’ve taken courses in this or that kind of “studies.” They know what they’re supposed to think - and what they’re never, ever supposed to say. And they know the jargon.
So they know that it’s not “the job of the white man,” as the postmodern scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has instructed them all, apropos of Western efforts to alleviate gender oppression and sex slavery in the Third World, “to save the brown woman from the brown man” - or, by the same token, to save the terrified brown gay man from a whole bunch of violent brown straight men.
(Never mind that Spivak herself, who was born in Calcutta and has had high-profile professorships at Cornell, Cambridge, and Columbia, seems to have been saved by white university administrators from what would otherwise have been a very obscure academic career in India.)
Thanks to people like Spivak , properly educated gays in L.A. and New York and London know that to so much as voice concern about the impending massacre of gays in Afghanistan is racist, Islamophobic, and postcolonialist .
When Donald Trump was president, he put Ric Grenell , his acting director of intelligence, in charge of an exceedingly ambitious - and exceedingly estimable - effort to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. The queer media and queer activist establishment heaped scorn on the initiative.
How could they do otherwise? To support Grenell’s work would have been to support Trump, whom they’d worked so hard to depict as a gay-hater. (Or, rather, an LGBT-hater - the only real evidence for which was his unwillingness to cheer the idea of transsexuals in the military.)
Also, Grenell frankly admitted that the worst antigay laws are in Muslim countries - an inconvenient truth that belied the queer nomenklatura’s preposterous doctrine that gays and Muslims are allies in victimhood .
Raging about Trump’s border wall? Terrific. But criticizing Taliban judges who want to drop walls on gays? No way.
But most of all, the whole enterprise was, in their view, a vulgar, verboten exercise in cultural condescension. How dare Trump and Grenell , after centuries of Western imperialism, imply that they held any moral high ground in relation to the Muslim world! How dare Don and Ric , as male members of the white race - “the cancer of human society,” as Susan Sontag once called it - presume to issue behavioral diktats to people of color?
No, deep down these shallow, self-centered professional gays in the Western world don’t care a whit about what happens to their “brothers” in Afghanistan or anywhere else that they themselves aren’t likely to visit. And they’re not impressed by campaigns to help them. What impresses them are empty, patronizing pro-gay gestures of the kind that the Obama administration - and now the Biden people - have specialized in: flying Pride flags at embassies, lighting the White House up in rainbow colors.
It’s sad. These well-connected gays could’ve followed up the same-sex marriage victory by looking abroad - looking, in short, beyond their own self-interest - and using their influence to help the poor sons of bitches in places like Afghanistan to win at least a fraction of the right to pursue happiness that they themselves enjoy.
But unlike Trump and Grenell , who are profoundly serious men, these are very silly people. In place of a moral compass, they have rainbow-flag Speedos and t-shirts bearing the Human Rights Campaign logo. And this summer, chances are that while they’re partying it up in Provincetown, Fire Island, and Miami Beach, walls will be falling - far, far away - on gay men in cities from Kabul to Kandahar.
The Real Lesson of Afghanistan Muslim perseverance vs. Western myopia.
Wed Aug 18, 2021
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
In an interview conducted back in 2005, al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri was asked about the statuses of Osama bin Laden, then leader of al-Qaeda, and Mullah Muhammad Omar, then leader of the Taliban—the two men most implicated for the September 11, 2001 terror strikes on the U.S. (bin Laden for masterminding it, Omar for providing him with logistical aid and sanctuary).
It had been four years since the U.S. had invaded Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban, and sent jihadists of all stripes running; and there had not been a peep from either the leader of al-Qaeda or the leader of the Taliban for quite some time.
Al-Zawahiri’s response, which I translated for inclusion in The Al Qaeda Reader
Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization . It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time (p.182, emphasis added).
Consider the applicability—if not the prophetic nature—of this response in light of recent developments: twenty years ago, the U.S.A.—the world’s only superpower—invaded Afghanistan, one of the world’s weakest and poorest nations; it made quick work of its enemies and set shop, nation building and importing “democracy”; and it eventually eliminated its archenemies, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
To any casual Western observer, it was an unqualified and resounding U.S. victory.
And yet…. and yet, two decades, trillions of U.S. dollars, and thousands of American servicemen’s lives later, not only does the U.S. not having anything to show for it, Afghanistan is set to become a much larger threat than ever before (not least as the Taliban—a “radical Muslim” group that has just founded the “Islamic emirate” of Afghanistan—seized billions’ worth of American weapons and equipment).
So what went wrong? Perhaps the following dichotomy—or rather dictum —may help: Whereas Muslims take a long, patient view of history, Westerners take a very short, myopic view; whereas Muslims maintain their ways and bide their time in moments of defeat (“we may be down but—so long as we’re not out—we’re still in the game”), Westerners allot too much significance to the temporal—to specific achievements or markers in time and space.
Take a concrete example—the wild euphoria that took the media by storm after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Then, CNN security analyst Peter Bergen declared that “Killing bin Laden is the end of the war on terror. We can just sort of announce that right now.” Insisting that the “iconic nature of bin Laden’s persona” cannot be replaced, Bergen further counseled that “It’s time to move on.”
Another CNN analyst, Fareed Zakaria , assured us that “this is a huge, devastating blow to al-Qaeda, which had already been crippled by the Arab Spring. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the end of al-Qaeda in any meaningful sense of the word.”
And yet … and yet, a full decade after bin Laden’s death, not only is his original safe haven, a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, back in action, but so too is al-Qaeda .
Why? Again, to quote that terrorist organization’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden … are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time .”
Kill this or that jihadist; conquer this or that Muslim nation; prop up this or that government and import this or that Western ideology or style of governance—so long as Islam is alive and well, so too will the “journey of jihad” continue, even if as an imperceptible pulse under the surface, revealing itself only when the time is right.
That you can always bet on.
Biden’s Afghanistan Catastrophe Increases Terror Threat in US Biden administration, meanwhile, focuses solely on "domestic extremists".
Wed Aug 18, 2021
The twentieth anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 is just a few weeks away.
The first step in solving a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem.
The good news is that the Biden administration acknowledges that America faces an increased threat of terrorism, especially as the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11 by al-Qaida approaches.
The bad news, even as the Taliban has now taken back all of Afghanistan because of the Biden administration’s abysmally failed policies, the Biden administration, incredibly, is entirely focused on the threats posed by domestic terrorists and extremists.
Biden utterly ignores the failures of the immigration system that continue to undermine national security and public safety in this especially dangerous era.
The focus of the press release, and as you will see, the NTAS Bulletin was Domestic Terrorism without a single reference to possible entry of foreign terrorists into the United States even as it addressed the elevated threats posed by various terror groups as the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11 is nearly upon us.
In fact, the above-noted press release included this excerpt:
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, DHS has increased the development, production, and dissemination of intelligence and other actionable information central to countering threats in the current environment. DHS has established a new, dedicated domestic terrorism branch within the Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). Further, DHS has established the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) to help build local prevention frameworks to provide communities with the tools they need to counter terrorism and other targeted violence.
In February, Secretary Mayorkas designated combating domestic violent extremism as a National Priority Area for the first time in FEMA grant programs. As a result, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments are required to spend at least 7.5 percent, or a minimum of $77 million, of their DHS grant awards toward combating this threat.
These initiatives are taken in concert with the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Domestic Terrorism Strategy which highlights the whole-of-government approach being take to enhance the analysis and distribution of actionable intelligence to stakeholders; prevent domestic terrorism recruitment and the mobilization to violence; disrupt and deter domestic terrorism activity; and confront long-term contributors to domestic terrorism.
The National Terrorism Advisory Bulletin
Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland
The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. The Homeland continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment leading up to and following the 20th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks as well religious holidays we assess could serve as a catalyst for acts of targeted violence. These threats include those posed by domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence, and those inspired or motivated by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences. These actors are increasingly exploiting online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity. Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.
This bulletin articulated concerns about domestic extremists and their numerous possible motivations. When the bulletin did mention foreign terrorist organizations, the concern was limited as to how those terror groups could motivate domestic terrorists, presumably Americans, via the internet.
Additionally, leading up to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula recently released its first English-language copy of Inspire magazine in over four years, which demonstrates that foreign terrorist organizations continue efforts to inspire U.S.-based individuals susceptible to violent extremist influences.
Foreign and domestic threat actors, to include foreign intelligence services, international terrorist groups and domestic violent extremists, continue to introduce, amplify, and disseminate narratives online that promote violence, and have called for violence against elected officials, political representatives, government facilities, law enforcement, religious communities or commercial facilities, and perceived ideologically-opposed individuals. There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases.
There was not a single word in the two DHS documents cited above, about concerns that foreign terrorists would seek to enter the United States to carry out terror attacks even as the Taliban was rampaging across Afghanistan, the country that provided safe havens for al-Qaida and other terror organizations before the attacks of 9/11 which prompted American military action in that country to help prevent future terror attacks against the United States.
Now even the Mainstream Media is alarmed over the loss of Afghanistan to the Taliban as direct result of the abrupt way that the Biden administration essentially turned tail and fled from that dangerous country, even leaving the U.S. Embassy staff in harm’s way, ordering them to “Shelter in place” as the Taliban captured city after city, including Kabul.
The first paragraph of the preface of the official report,
9/11 and Terrorist Travel -
Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” states
:
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.” Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.
Exploring the Link between Human Smugglers and Terrorists
In July 2001, the CIA warned of a possible link between human smugglers and terrorist
groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Indeed, there is
evidence to suggest that since 1999 human smugglers have facilitated the travel of
terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups. With their global reach and connections to fraudulent document vendors and corrupt government officials, human smugglers clearly have the “credentials” necessary to aid terrorist travel.
The only conclusion I can come to is that inasmuch as the Biden administration is determined to ramp up the “Immigration Delivery System” as I have come to refer to the administration’s malfeasant immigration policies, there can be no acknowledgment that terror attacks from foreign terror organizations depends on multiple failures of the immigration system.
One of my earlier articles,
Jihad At The Border , explained how the border crisis facilitates the entry of terrorists.
Video: 9/11 Families Tell Biden To Stay Away From Their Memorial Events Unless he declassifies documents on the Saudis.
Tue Aug 17, 2021 Fox and Friends reports on 1,800 family members of 9-11 victims who are asking Biden to stay away from this years 9-11 Memorial Day events unless he fulfills his commitment to declassify documents that show a link between Saudi Arabia and the 9-11 attack. Don't miss it!
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