Published on Jul 24, 2012 by rescuechristians

"The armed [rebels] in Syria [have]
murdered more than 200 Christians in the city of Homs, including entire
families with young children," a priest in Homs told Barnabas Aid
magazine. "These gangs kidnapped Christians and demanded high ransoms.
In two cases, after the ransoms were paid, the men's bodies were found."

"Christians are increasingly being targeted and driven out of their homes and
districts." Elizabeth Kendal wrote for the Religious Liberty Prayer
Bulletin. "Some 138,000 Christians have fled Homs, where Christians have
been terrorised and churches have been looted and occupied by rebel
forces... In areas under rebel control, intolerant, hard-line Sunni
fundamentalism is making Muslim-Christian coexistence impossible. For
the jihadists, neutrality is not an option, and Christians (and Muslims)
refusing to support the jihad are being tortured, expelled and
murdered."

As in Egypt, Tunisia, and other Arab countries, the
uprisings in Syria—which initially called for democratic change and
greater freedoms—provided a platform for Islamists, long-suppressed
under authoritarian rule, to rally behind a fundamentalist agenda.

"For the newest generation of Sunni jihadists, Syria has become the latest
front in the struggle to wrest control of the region from rival
religious sects and foreign occupation," Daniel Brode, Roger Farhat, and
Daniel Nisman, intelligence analysts at Max-Security Solutions, wrote
in an op-ed for the New York Times. "Many of these fighters hail from
the vast reaches of North Africa and the Gulf, arriving in Syria with
weapons, funds and a radical ideology."

Asia News, quoting Kuwait's Arabic-language newspaper, Al-Qabas, reported that "jihadists"
from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Pakistan "crossed the
Syrian-Turkish border to fight in the jihad alongside [opposition
forces]... against the regime of Bashar el Assad."

(Rescue Christians org)
http://www.rescuechristians.org/2012/07/24/syria-middle-east-rebels-murdered-...