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JANUARY 2015
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A Symbol of Hate Rallies ICC & Others To Help Iraq’s Christians FEATURE
ANSWERS
INTERVIEWS
ADVOCACY
ISIS Seeks Resurrection of Islamic Caliphate
What is ISIS? How are they threatening the Church?
Mosul Christians Share Their Stories
Giving a Voice to Christians in Iraq
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Interviews
TERROR IN MOSUL Christians Share Their Stories With ICC Iraqi Christians recount the night they were forced to flee their homes when ISIS militants took control of Mosul, Iraq. By Iraqi Christians in Mosul
As ISIS swept through Iraq, the resulting crisis displaced 1,968,516 people. More than 325,000 families are no longer living in their own homes but have been forced to seek shelter in one of at least 2,000 different locations across the country. Daily, hundreds are streaming out of the country, doubtful they will ever return. What cannot be lost amidst the numbers that show the scale of the need is the reality that each of those people, each of those families, has their own story. In the following pages, we invite you to read just a few of the stories that they shared with us, written in their own words. 2
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Are You Nasrani? By Pastor Karam
For five days we were hearing that we should stay off the streets. ISIS militants were approaching the city, there was fighting with the Iraqi army on the other side of the city. We hoped that the military would be able to defend the city. Our church had gathered in a prayer meeting in our home. Many of us were there for three days, because we were not able to travel around the city. It was not long after midnight when we heard that the city was fallen. We quickly decided it was time to go, and so we quickly piled into a car and
‘It was not long after midnight when we heard that the city was fallen.’ PERSECU ION.org
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left the city. We heard that just fifteen minutes after we left, our neighborhood had been shut down — blocked off under ISIS control. As we were going, we saw soldiers fleeing as well, throwing off their uniforms and changing into civilian clothes. By the thousands, people flooded onto the road out of Mosul towards Erbil. Some were in cars, many were walking. All were leaving the city behind and fleeing for safety. I returned to Mosul twice. The first time was to collect papers and documents from our home. The city was oddly quiet, but I did not have any problems. The second time I took a truck to take the furniture from our home. This was just one day before the deadline that ISIS gave to Mosul’s Christians. They had said you must either convert or leave, and if you don’t, then you will be killed. As I was leaving the city, I had to pass through an ISIS checkpoint. They stopped me and examined my ID card. Then
‘Now we are living as refugees.’ the fighter asked me, ‘Are you Nasrani [Christian]?’ I told him yes. He pulled me to the side and had me sit and wait. I was there for over four hours. I did not know what would happen to me. The fighters were from different countries; I could tell from the dialect that they were not all Iraqi or Syrian. After four hours of sitting, waiting, an Emir, one of the leaders, came over and returned my ID card and said I was free to go. I was amazed. The whole time I was praying, but I did not know what would happen. Now we are living as refugees — but we are serving, too. The whole church from Mosul is now in Erbil and helping in the aid to the other refugees. Even though we have our own needs, it is an opportunity to share the Gospel with them. 3
Interviews
My Country Doesn’t Want Me By Naefa, a 60-year-old woman who wept as she told us her story
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am from Mosul. We had two homes.
Our family was well established and had been living there for years. When ISIS came, we had to flee. They were ravaging through the streets, and word spread quickly for Christians to get out. So we left with only a few belongings, leaving everything else behind. But then we hit an ISIS roadblock, where they stripped us of everything, leaving us with just the clothes we were wearing.
We had no place to go, but fled to the streets and slept on the streets for a number of weeks with my family. Finally, we walked to a neighboring village where we slept in an abandoned school where my daughter and family, who had also fled, later joined us.
‘We hit an ISIS roadblock, where they stripped us of everything, leaving us with only the clothes we were wearing.’ ISIS eventually attacked that city, forcing us to uproot again, this time moving to this Christian village. Here, I am living in an abandoned house. We rely on the generosity of the few residents that remained in the village and aid organizations, but because it’s dangerous to visit this volatile area, we have very little aid that reaches us. I only have summer clothes and am not prepared for the cold nights and harsh winter approaching. My hope is to immigrate because there’s only a bleak horizon saying, “My country doesn’t want me here. What am I to do?” 4
We Believe it is the End of Christians in Iraq
By Karam and Rana, parents of two young children
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Mosul city. We heard ISIS was coming, but didn’t think it was a serious threat. When the Iraqi army left Mosul, ISIS began telling us to convert. e lived in
The chant of “convert to Islam or die” was blasting from speakers on trucks driving around the city. We even received a specific notice from ISIS reinforcing this message. Many people had already fled, so finally we joined, fleeing from the life we had established. We fled to Qaraqosh village, but it got dangerous too, so we had to leave again. In all, we’ve fled four villages. Now in this village we don’t feel safe, either. Just two nights ago, we heard attacks by ISIS. They take place at the PERSECU ION.org
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‘The chant of “convert to Islam or die” was blasting from speakers…’ bottom of the valley just 10 minutes away from here, and ISIS has settled into the area. Here we have nothing except the empty house we live in with two other families. We’re so nervous about the coming months: no schooling, no homes, no solution, and nothing to go back to. We have no idea what to do at this point. We believe it’s the end of Christians in Iraq. All of us will leave. JANUARY 2015
Nothing More Could Happen in Mosul By Sinan, a 20-year-old university student
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from ISIS entered Mosul. For about one week there was fighting on the outskirts of Mosul. We thought it would just be for a short time and then be finished. Nothing more could happen in Mosul. The army was there. irst a few soldiers
Something suddenly happened — the leaders of the army fled, then the soldiers fled. I remember in the middle of the night many people leaving. Some going by car, some by walking. I was thinking, ‘There is something wrong — something is happening in our town.’ So I stayed awake from 10 pm until 2 am. Then a resident called and told us that the city was falling and we needed to leave the area. We saw a pickup truck of ISIS fighters coming through town. They were just shooting, setting cars on fire. Our family left Mosul and started walking from Mosul. We left at 4 am, and it was after 11 pm when we arrived in Qaraqosh. As we were walking, we saw cars of the army coming through, and the roads were so crowded that they were shooting into the air to make room for them to get through. I remember a mother with her young baby was afraid from the shooting. As she was running to get out of the way, I saw her drop her baby. I can’t forget seeing this, seeing all of these people running from their homes. We stayed in Qaraqosh for over a month. I returned to Mosul twice. When I went there, it was like a “ghost city.” Everyone still there was scared of ISIS. Every Friday they would issue new orders about what they can wear, how to grow their
beards, that women and girls were not allowed to leave their homes. Everyone was scared of them. Mosul’s Christians — they were safe, but they lost everything. Their ID cards, their homes, their cars, even the ring of the hands of married people. ISIS took everything. They took the churches — all of the churches they took. Also, there is a statue of Mary in the city, they had destroyed that. Every cross on the churches, they destroyed those also. For the homes of Christians, they took everything out of them and used them. Then they marked the homes with the “N” for “Nasrani” [Christian]. Now, for many of them, they are using them as the homes for the families of the fighters. The foreign fighters brought their families to live in the Christians’ homes; from Pakistan,
‘I can’t forget seeing this, seeing all these people running from their homes.’ PERSECU ION.org
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Morocco, Palestine, those families are living in the Christians’ homes. We stayed in Qaraqosh for about one month before ISIS attacked and forced us to flee again from Qaraqosh. We went from there back to Mosul. We stayed there in my aunt’s house for about 10 days. We could not return to our home because it was taken by ISIS. For those 10 days we could not go out; we stayed in our house the entire time. We called a Christian station in Erbil and asked them to pray for us and to give us advice on what we should do. They encouraged us that we should leave Mosul. We were worried about the road, but we were able to leave Mosul before the deadline, and now our family is living here in Erbil. I left behind my university studies. I’m not sure what will happen to me, to my family.
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Feature Article
THE BANNER OF DEATH ISIS spreads their banner of death over Iraq, driving Christians from their homeland of the last 2,000 years.
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sis’ flag has become a potent
and widespread symbol. Known as the “Black Banner” of Islam, the flag harks back to the 8th century when the Islamic Caliphate flew solid black banners to herald their own rise to power. Inscribed on the flag of ISIS is the shahada, literally “the testimony” of Islam. The white lettering across the top of the flag is the first half of the creed, which reads, “There is no god but Allah.” Below, in the white circle meant to symbolize the seal of Muhammad, the Arabic script completes the second half of the creed, “Muhammad is the messenger of god.”
Creating the Islamic State In essence, ISIS is flying the Black Banner of Islam, coming to be known by many as the Black Banner of Jihad, over its conquered land in Iraq and Syria to declare that they have resurrected the Islamic Caliphate. Historically, the caliphs of Islamic empires were seen as successors of Muhammad and meant to lead the entirety of the Muslim faith (the ummah) as a sovereign, Islamic state. They have created this new “Islamic State” by employing some of the most brutal tactics imaginable. They do not carry out their atrocities in secret, but broadcast them to the world. They seek to create a land for Sunni Muslims who adhere to the commands of Islam’s holy books, the Quran and Hadiths, and they are using the brutality and terror that Muhammad practiced and commanded. They have committed mass executions of Shi’a Muslims, who they view as apostate. They have enslaved thousands of women — Yazidi, Christian, and others — to be sold off and abused as sex slaves and as a reward for their fighters.
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Feature Article For Christians, ISIS has offered the choice to convert to Islam, pay a tax and live under dhimittude (a set of laws laid down by Muhammad to slowly strangle other faiths), or face the sword. In light of this, as many as 200,000 of Iraq’s Christians fled their homelands, in some cases ahead of an impending deadline for conversion or the advance of the black flag that symbolizes the ISIS fighters. In total, almost 2 million have been displaced as a result of the conflict. While ISIS has risen to prominence over the past nine months, leaping on to headlines when it captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the group and many of its fighters have a long history of combat with Islamic terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda.
‘The jama’ah (group) would use the absent obligation of jihad as its fundamental means for change, implementing Allah’s command … ‘ — Dabiq, ISIS’ glossy monthly magazine that recruits, inspires, and disciples radical Muslims.
The emptying of Iraq’s Christian villages in Mosul and the Nineveh plain is just the latest chapter in a decade that has seen the population shrink from nearly 1.5 million to less than 300,000.
Masters of Communication Members of ISIS are masters of communication, using social media, magazines, and video to recruit, terrorize, and 8
inspire the faithful. Their first edition of Dabiq (sample pages above and at right), a glossy, Englishlanguage magazine, highlights two important elements of their ideology. First, the return of the Khilafah, or the Caliphate, which is the Islamic political and religious order that identifies the objectives of establishing a political state for Muslims. The Caliphate is arranged around the leadership of a caliph — an approved successor of the prophet Muhammad. ISIS proclaimed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Caliph Ibrahim and is attempting to demPERSECU ION.org
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onstrate he is a historical and legitimate descendent of Muhammad. Second, the title of the magazine, Dabiq, is a Syrian city that is to be the site of a battle between Islamic and Christian forces that ushJANUARY 2015
ers in the end times. ISIS’ eschatological views drive much of its propaganda.
ABOVE AND BELOW: ISIS’ glossy monthly magazine, Dabiq, is named after a Syrian city which is said to be the site of an Armageddon-style battle between Islamic and Christian forces.
In the video portraying the brutal killing of 16 Syrian soldiers, as well as announcing the killing of an American aid worker, Peter Kassig, the ISIS spokesman announced that Kassig’s body has been buried in Dabiq and they are waiting there for the soldiers to arrive. ISIS now surpasses rival Al-Qaeda as the largest and most dangerous Islamic terrorist group in the world. While much of ISIS’ attention is directed at solidifying control in Iraq and Syria and establishing an Islamic state over the vast stretches of land they control, they have yet broader ambitions. They are openly hostile to Shi’a Muslims, especially those in Iran, who they view as heretics. They have also threatened Sunni countries, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who do not accept their authority. ISIS is clearly looking to establish a farreaching Islamic state, and is not shy about its threats or intentions toward Europe or the United States.
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