Faith of the Fathers Report

Monday, May 4, 2015

ISIS Demands $23 Million for Assyrian Hostages, Vigil Held in Australia

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(AINA) -- Assyrian church leader are reporting that ISIS has rejected a ransom offer for the 230 Assyrians it captured on February 23 in the Hasaka province of Syria (AINA 2015-02-23). 253 Assyrians were captured in the initial attacks on the 35 Assyrian villages on the Khabur river. 23 were subsequently released but 230 remain in captivity, including 52 children, 84 females and 95 males.

ISIS has demanded 100,000 US dollars for each hostage, for a total of 23 million.

Leading the negotiations with ISIS is Bishop Mellis of Australia. In an interview with SBS Radio in Australia, Bishop Mellis said:

We are a poor nation. These people have not done anything wrong and won't harm anyone. We as Assyrians do not have this amount of money you are asking for.

We offered an amount of money that we cannot disclose at this time. With the amount we offered, we thought it was acceptable, to have the return of the 230 people

After two days, they (ISIS) told us, "the amount the church offered was not acceptable. From now on, we will no longer negotiate with you.

The hostages have been moved to Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria, and are now awaiting trial in Islamic court under Sharia law, where a Muslim judge will decide their fate. Desperate church leaders have pleaded for assistance neighboring countries, including Turkey, in securing the release of the Assyrian hostages.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Rescued girls not from Chibok, Nigerian military says - CNN.com

Nigerian soldiers walking in the street in the remote north-eastern town of Baga in Borno State. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

The following excerpts are from CNN:

Hotoro, Kano, Nigeria (CNN)Girls rescued from Boko Haram terror camps in Sambisa Forest on Tuesday are "not the Chibok girls," Nigerian Army spokesman Sani Usman said.

However, one official did not rule out that captives from other Boko Haram camps that were raided might include some of the 200 girls abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok.

Nigerian troops rescued 200 girls and 93 women Tuesday in the Sambisa Forest in the northeastern part of the country, the Nigerian Armed Forces announced on its official Twitter account. The forest is a stronghold for the militant Boko Haram group and is not far from Chibok.

Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade said the rescued girls and women are still being screened and none has spoken to their families yet.

The 2014 mass abduction from Chibok led to an international social media movement, #BringBackOurGirls, to rescue them. Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, has been kidnapping females for years and has hundreds in their custody.

The Tokumbere, Sassa and Tlafa terror camps were raided and destroyed, said a source close to the military. The Tokumbere camp is the most notorious, where the training of small children by Boko Haram is said to have occurred, the source said. Boko Haram terrorists were killed in the operation, but the military did not say how many.

Senior Female ISIS Recruiter is Student From Seattle

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

A senior female Isis figure who reportedly helped recruit women to join the extremist group in areas under its self-declared caliphate has been exposed as a student from Seattle, who may have been living in the city up until March this year.

The person behind the influential @_UmmWaqqas Twitter account has been revealed by Channel 4 as a woman in her 20s who lived and studied in the US.

Her Twitter account had a following of over 8,000 before it was suspended and shows that British recruits, such as Aqsa Mahmood, and other women from Europe were in contact with her in the days running up their departure. Mahmood goes by the name of 'Umm Layth' online and tweets from the @_UmmWaqqas account...