Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim

  Church attacks by jihadi organizations are more systematic and deadly than church attacks by angry Muslim mobs. While church attacks by Muslim mobs are generally spontaneous—they often erupt on Fridays after anti-Christian mosque sermons and rely on whatever weapons are at hand, such as fire and Molotov cocktails—jihadis intentionally target churches during Sunday services or, as in the Christmas holiday examples discussed above, when churches are packed with worshippers celebrating their holy days. For maximum casualties, jihadis make use of more advanced weaponry, including explosive devices and machine guns.

  Such jihadi attacks on churches are taking place around much of the Islamic world, wherever there are churches. Along with the especially deadly assaults already mentioned—including the Egyptian New Year attack in 2011, which left twenty-three worshippers dead—one of the most dramatic assaults occurred on October 31, 2010, in Baghdad, Iraq, when the Our Lady of Salvation Church was attacked during Sunday Mass. At least fifty-eight Christians, including two priests, were slaughtered, and nearly a hundred were wounded (many losing their arms or legs) by al-Qaeda affiliated suicide-bombers whose vests were “filled with ball bearings to kill as many people as possible,” reported the New York Times.131 The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of insurgents, later boasted of the attack in an Internet posting, calling the church the “‘dirty den of idolatry.’”132 This late 2010 attack was hardly the first or last Iraqi church attack. In fact, the Our Lady of Salvation church was one of six churches that had already been bombed earlier, in August 2004, soon after Saddam Hussein was ousted and the jihad was set loose.

  Today, Christians are an all-but-extinct species in Iraq—more than half of them have fled—and what few churches remain are still under attack. On August 2, 2011, a car bomb exploded outside the Holy Family Syrian Catholic Church in the city of Kirkuk, inflicting injuries on almost two dozen people and damaging the church and nearby homes, according to the Voice of America. 133 On the same day another bomb placed in a car parked near a Presbyterian church was defused before it went off. Less than two weeks later, yet another bomb exploded near the St. Ephraim Syrian Orthodox Church in Kirkuk. No one was killed, but the church was severely damaged.134 And in March 2012 it was reported that, though another Kirkuk church had recently been restored after a 2006 bomb attack that killed a thirteen-year-old Christian boy, the “reopening celebration was but a brief respite in the ongoing suffering of Iraq’s Christian community, signaled by two further attacks”—including one on another church in Baghdad that was bombed, killing two guards and injuring five others.135

  The same kind of persecution has recently come to Syria. In October 2012, two churches were attacked. One bomb was detonated near the historical gate of Bab Touma (“Thomas’s Doorway”) in an area largely populated by the nation’s Christian minority. The bomb exploded as people were going to their churches for Sunday Mass; as many as ten people were killed. “‘Terrorists are doing this,’” said George, a Christian resident.136 Also in October a car bomb exploded “in front of the only Syriac Orthodox Church in the town of Deir Ezzor. . . .” Five people near the church were killed. In September, the same church was defiled and robbed by armed intruders.137

  In November 2012, the historic Arabic Evangelical Church of Aleppo was mined and blown up “by armed men, for pure sectarian hatred,” according to its pastor, Ibrahim Nasir, who expressed “bitterness and sadness of all Syrian citizens” for an act that makes Christians “inconsolable.... Today is the day when we cry out to Christ to say: my God, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”138 Later in the same month, another bomb exploded near the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo: “Scores of people were injured and killed. Estimates put the number killed between 20 and 80. The bomb damaged the al-Kalima school and the Syrian French Hospital, as well as a nursing home. This is the third attack in four weeks in the New Assyrian Quarter in Aleppo.”139

  In Libya, where rebels recently took over, thanks to U.S. support, an explosion caused extensive damage to a Coptic Christian church near the city of Misrata—where former rebels hold a major checkpoint—on Saturday, December 30, killing two people and wounding two others. Two months later, armed Muslims assaulted another Coptic church in Benghazi, injuring the priest and his assistant. 140

  The jihad has even returned to the only Christian-majority nation in the Middle East: Lebanon. In July 2012, before the Maronite Patriarch visited Akkar, flyers signed by the “Soldiers of the Great Prophet” made anti-Christian threats in what was once the safest Middle East country for Christians, calling “on the infidels to stop their blasphemy.... We will start from the infidel’s church in Akkar and we won’t stop . . . this is not the end but the beginning.”141 Two months later, in September 2012, two “unknown assailants” opened fire on the St. Joseph Church in the town of Bqosta near Sidon, damaging the building’s windows.142

  Even in the easternmost fringes of the Islamic world, jihadis are targeting churches. In September 2011 in Indonesia, a Muslim suicide-bomber attacked Bethel Bible Church when it was packed during a service, killing himself and two others and wounding at least twenty worshippers—some critically.143 Security received advance warning but, as is typical in Muslim-majority nations, simply left their posts at the time of the attack.144 A jihadi involved in the planning of this attack later confessed that he was operating under his jihad leader’s orders, “based on the Koran and Sunnah of the Prophet, in the effort to achieve the implementation of Sharia.”145

  Spotlight on Nigeria

  But no region is more representative of the jihad on churches than sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria—roughly half Christian and half Muslim—where Christians are under severe attack in the Muslim-majority north.146 Several thousand have died at the hands of the jihadi group “People of Sunnah for Islamic Propagation and Jihad”—better known as Boko Haram, which means, “Western education is forbidden.”147 Boko Haram’s hatred for Christianity and Christians is such that it seeks to cleanse the Muslim-majority regions of Nigeria of all Christians. In March 2012, a spokesman said, “We are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.”148 Other plans for wiping Christians out have included poisoning their food.149

  Boko Haram’s sheer hatred for Christians manifests itself in frequent murderous attacks. In October 2012, as many as thirty Christian university students were slaughtered when Boko Haram gunmen stormed the college and “separated the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their throat.”150 Before being massacred they were likely asked if they were Muslim, and, if not, if they were willing to convert. That is what happened in September 2011, when Muslim militants “went to shops owned by Christians at a market at about 8 p.m., ordering them to recite verses from the Quran.” If they were unable to do so, the gunmen shot and killed them. Nor does Boko Haram have any compunction for women, children, and the elderly. Many children and pregnant women have been among the thousands of Christians hacked to death, as was a seventy-nine-year-old Christian woman choir member who had her throat slit in her home. 151

  It is difficult even to keep track of how many churches have been destroyed in Nigeria. Not one Sunday passed in the month of June 2012 without churches being bombed and Christians killed. On June 17, Muslim militants bombed three separate churches, killing dozens of worshippers and critically wounding hundreds, including many children. 152 Reports of growing numbers of Christians who “dare not” attend church services anymore are on the increase, even as other reports suggest that some police are complicit in the attacks, often abandoning their watch in advance of the violence. 153

  In April 2011, Muslims set fire to the Evangelical Winning All Church and some nearby Christian homes, displacing hundreds of local Christians. This “occurred after Muslims approached Christian music shop owner Gabriel Kiwase and told him that his music was dist
urbing them as they said their prayers. The young Christian man ‘quietly switched off the music set, and then the Muslims left, only to return 20 minutes later to burn down the music shop and then go on a rampage,’” then set fire to the pastor’s house and the property of five other Christians. According to the pastor, whose family was rendered homeless by the destruction, most members of his church have fled the town, reducing attendance at services to fifty: “We currently worship in the destroyed church building with no roof to shield us from the sun and the rains.”154

  Several more churches were bombed in July 2011, including another Winning All church in an attack that damaged only the building. The day before, during a Sunday service, another church in the same area had been bombed and at least three worshippers killed and many more injured.155 Later in the month, two more churches were bombed, including a Church of Christ and a Baptist church no longer in use because of previous Muslim attacks.156 A few days later, when officials arrested Islamist leaders, a Catholic church was torched.157 On November 4, 2011, Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar” carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, in one case opening fire on a congregation of “mostly women and children,” killing 150 people.158

  The blame for these attacks does not rest entirely on Boko Haram. Sometimes local Muslims—who may have lived in neighborly peace with Christians in the same village for years—suddenly give violent expression to their anti-Christian sentiments. Weeks before the Christmas Day church bombings of 2011, another jihadi attack, enabled by “local Muslims,” left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed. According to eyewitnesses, “The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops.” 159

  The situation in Nigeria became even more dramatic at the start of 2012. In January, Boko Haram issued an ultimatum giving Christians three days to evacuate the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria—or die. Soon thereafter, armed Muslims stormed the Deeper Life Christian Ministry Church and “opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer,” killing six, including the pastor’s wife.160 On the following day, as friends and relatives gathered to mourn the deaths of those slain, Muslims screaming “Allahu Akbar” appeared and opened fire again—killing another twenty Christians, according to the Telegraph.161 Several other churches were bombed in January, and at least seven more Christians were killed at worship.162

  During a Sunday morning service on February 28, 2012, a Muslim suicide bomber forced his way into the grounds of a Church of Christ, killing two women and an eighteen-month-old child; some fifty people were injured in the blast.163 On the previous Sunday, Muslim terrorists had detonated a bomb outside the Christ Embassy Church, injuring five, one critically.164

  On March 11, 2012, another Boko Haram suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church, killing at least ten people. The bomb detonated as worshippers were attending Sunday Mass at St. Finbar’s Catholic Church in Jos, a city where thousands of Christians have died in the last decade as a result of Boko Haram’s jihad.165

  The next month, “an attack on a Christian church service in northern Nigeria left at least 16 people dead”: armed jihadis on motorcycles stormed Bayero University in the city of Kano on a Sunday morning during a Catholic Mass held in the school’s theater hall, throwing explosives and opening fire as people attempted to flee.166

  On August 7, 2012, Muslim gunmen stormed the Deeper Life Bible Church, where Christian worshippers were gathered in prayer, “and surrounded the church in the middle of a worship service and opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles on the worshippers.”167 At least nineteen people, including the pastor, were murdered. The following day, an unexploded bomb was discovered at Revival Church. A World Watch Monitor report of this particular attack describes the typical aftermath of church attacks in Nigeria:One month after gunmen opened fire inside Deeper Life Bible Church... members of the church have yet to resume worship services and other activities. “All of us are traumatized by this attack. [There is] no family in this church that is not affected by this incident,” said Stephen Imagejor, an assistant pastor whose wife, Ruth, was killed, and whose two daughters, Amen, 12, and Juliet, 9, suffered from gunshot wounds and were hospitalized. “In all, 19 died.” Church members say they were attacked specifically because of their Christian faith. They may have been a target, they say, because some of the dead include former Muslims who had converted to Christianity. And in the aftermath, “Many are now saying that they can no longer come to the church,” Imagejor said. “But we will eventually try to see how we can get those of us that have survived the attack to return to the church for worship services. But, I do visit them to encourage them to remain steadfast in the faith in spite of the persecution.”168

  And the jihad only rages on. In September 2012 a suicide bomb attack on St. John’s Catholic Church claimed three lives, including those of a woman and a child; forty-four others were seriously injured.169 The following month, a renewed spate of church attacks caused thousands more people to flee. An Islamic suicide bomber rammed an SUV loaded with explosives into St. Rita Catholic Church during Sunday Mass, killing eight people and wounding more than a hundred. One reporter “saw the bodies of four worshippers lying on the floor of the church after the blast, surrounded by broken glass. The body of the suicide bomber had been blasted into nearby rubble.” The church building was wrecked and charred black. 170 Also in October, the Church of Brethren was raided by Islamic gunmen, who killed at least two people and set the church aflame. 171 Understandably, many Nigerian churches are shutting down in fear of further attacks.

  November 25, 2012, was another bloody Sunday for churchgoers in the Muslim-majority north of Nigeria. The Protestant church of St. Andrew near Kaduna was attacked by two consecutive suicide bombings. Shortly after the service, one suicide bomber drove a minibus loaded with explosives into the church. Then, after soldiers and civilians had gathered on the spot, another jihadi detonated a car bomb, leaving a total of eleven dead and some thirty injured. Most of the victims were members of the church choir. Separately, three more Christians were ambushed and killed as they were going to Mass in Kano .172

  The next month at least four more churches were torched and ten Christians murdered “when the Islamic group members went on rampage and burned 20 houses and a church in the area,” as well as three more churches, all to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” After the Islamic invaders torched the churches, they used guns and machetes to slaughter their victims.173

  Spotlight on Kenya

  Primarily a Christian country, Kenya is only about 12 percent Muslim. However, it borders Somalia, where the Islamic terror organization al-Shabaab (“the Youth”) has essentially wiped out Christianity and is now targeting the churches of neighboring Kenya, with the aid of Kenya’s own Muslims. Kenya further demonstrates how the line differentiating the Muslim mob from the jihadis can become extremely fuzzy.

  During just the four months between April 2012 and August 2012, at least fourteen churches in Kenya were attacked. 174 Then in October a grenade was thrown into the Sunday School building of St. Polycarp Anglican Church. It blew off the roof, killed one boy, and injured eight other children attending Sunday school—some requiring surgery. According to the mother of one of the children, “‘We are in Eastleigh,’ the area of Nairobi well-known for its largely Somali population.... ‘Many Christians, including myself, thought that something might happen. Every week we’d wonder “What if it’s this Sunday?” But we’d still go to church.’” Likewise, a parliament member said, “The life of an innocent child has been taken and others have been cruelly injured and traumatized in what should be the safest of places.... The sanctity of life has been heartlessly breached in a sanctified place. Such acts seem to be designed to spark civil unrest and intimidate the Christian church. In the face of such an outrage we ask, with the prophet Habakkuk, ‘O Lord, how long?’ and let us trust tha
t God in his mercy will bring justice and relief as we cry out to him.”175

  In November of the previous year, Muslims, apparently angered at the use of wine for communion (Islam forbids alcohol) had thrown a grenade near a church compound—killing two, including an eight-year-old girl, and critically wounding three others. The pastor of another congregation received a message telling him to flee the region “within 48 hours or you [will] see bomb blast taking your life and we know your house, Christians will see war. Don’t take it so lightly. We are for your neck.”176

  In March 2012 a band of Muslims launched a grenade attack on a crowd of 150 Christians attending an outdoor church meeting, killing a woman and a child and wounding about fifty Christians. The Muslim attackers were inspired to action by a preacher holding an alternate rally only 900 feet from the Christian gathering, where the Christians could hear the preacher and the mob slandering Christianity. 177

  In April 2012, a Muslim man pretending to be a worshipper at God’s House of Miracles International Church threw three grenades during the service, killing a twenty-seven-year-old university student and injuring over a dozen others. The Muslim terrorist, whom eyewitnesses conjectured was a Somali, “looked uncomfortable and always looked down.... He threw three hand grenades and only one exploded. He took off, and he fired in the air three gunshots.”178

  In July 2012, several Islamic jihadis launched simultaneous grenade and gunfire attacks on two churches while the congregations were at prayer. “Five militants attacked the Africa Inland Church, killing 17 people and wounding some 60, including many women and children. The other two militants attacked the Catholic church just 3 km away, leaving three believers wounded.” 179

  In August, Muslims attacked two churches, setting one on fire. Another church was attacked and looted “by an armed mob believed to be sympathizers of the al-Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist network.” In the words of the pastor who witnessed the pillage, “attackers armed with guns stormed the compound and immediately began pulling down one iron sheet after another and soon 60 iron sheets were gone.... It was a terrible sight to watch the walls of the church come down, [but] I could not shout for help because the attackers could gun me down.... Shocked and dismayed, the church’s 60 congregants arrived for worship the next day to find their church building in ruins.”180 Local police were told that there were threats of an attack and that Muslims were saying things such as “we do not want infidels in this area,” but they did nothing.181