RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sri-lanka-makes-arrests-in-easter-bombing-attacks-11555918580?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=video&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

“Authorities said the government had received warnings that an obscure Islamist militant organization known as National Thowheeth Jama’ath could stage attacks, possibly targeting religious sites or political figures.”

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—Sri Lankan authorities took 24 people into custody in connection with a series of Easter morning suicide bombing attacks on tourist hotels and churches that killed almost 300 people and injured hundreds of others.

Arrests were made in several locations in and near the capital, where the bombings were focused. There were at least eight explosions on Sunday, most blamed on suicide bombers.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273545/sri-lanka-jihad-massacre-and-decline-west-robert-spencer

Well over two hundred people are dead, and hundreds more injured, in jihad massacres in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday morning, and now the usual denial and obfuscation are in full swing. I’m often asked, when I speak around the country, what it will take to wake people up to the nature and gravity of the jihad threat. For all too many people, the answer, as the Sri Lanka attacks abundantly show, is nothing.

The facts were clear enough, at least if one checked the Indian media. India’s News18.com reported that “two of the six attacks that rocked Sri Lanka this morning are reportedly to be have been carried out by suicide bombers,” that telltale sign that this was a jihad attack, with the bombers hoping to claim the Qur’an’s promise of Paradise for those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111). “The attack at Shangri La hotel,” News18 continued, “was carried out by suicide bomber Zahran Hashim, while Abu Mohammad has been identified as the attacker at the Batticalao church.”

The Hindu, meanwhile, reported on another jihad suicide bomber, Mohamed Azzam Mohamed, who “waited patiently in a queue for the Easter Sunday breakfast buffet at Sri Lanka’s Cinnamon Grand hotel before setting off explosives strapped to his back.” Mohamed was “just about to be served when he set off his devastating strike in the packed restaurant, a manager at the Sri Lankan hotel said.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-massacre-of-christians-11555875924

The Easter Sunday slaughter of Christians in Sri Lanka is a jolting reminder that killers motivated by religious animus continue to be a threat to innocents around the world. Large-scale terror attacks outside the Middle East have been fewer in recent months, but that is due more to the West’s efforts at pre-emption than to any lack of murderous intent.

The explosions hit three churches and hotels known for foreign visitors in or near the capital of Colombo. At this writing at least 207 had been killed and several hundred injured. At least 27 foreigners were among the dead, including “several” Americans, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

World leaders are denouncing the attack on “humanity,” but make no mistake: This was an attack on Christians. The killers didn’t pick any random Sunday. The bombs went off at places of worship during services on the holiest day of the Christian calendar. The killers may have taken their bloody cues from the attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt on Palm Sunday in 2017. Police were on watch for a reason outside the church we attended this Easter Sunday morning in New York City, just as they’re often outside synagogues after a terrorist event.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/easter-sunday-explosions-at-multiple-churches-and-hotels-rock-sri-lanka-death-tolls-rises

A pair holding U.S. and British nationalities were among the 11 foreigners killed after a series of explosions struck three churches and three luxury hotels in and just outside of Sri Lanka’s capital Easter Sunday, leaving at least 207 people dead and 450 others injured, officials said.Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said the other foreigners whose nationalities have been verified included three Indians, one Portuguese national, two Turkish nationals, and three British nationals.The U.S. State Department confirmed in a statement that “several U.S. citizens were among those killed” in the explosions, though details were still emerging. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on to condemn the Easter morning “terror attacks.””Attacks on innocent people gathering in a place of worship or enjoying a holiday meal are affronts to the universal values and freedoms that we hold dear, and demonstrate yet again the brutal nature of radical terrorists whose sole aim is to threaten peace and security,” Pompeo said in the statement.The six nearly simultaneous blasts—followed hours later by two more explosions—marked the bloodshed as among the worst since the South Asian country’s 26-year civil war ended a decade ago, a spokesperson for the Sri Lanka police said.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14067/nigeria-jihad-christians

The current violence, which has been getting worse since early 2017, “is slightly different, in that it is a series of targeted attacks on Christian communities attempting to displace farmers and take land for herders.” — Nathan Johnson, International Christian Concern, Regional Manager for Africa.

“Christians in Nigeria are treated as second-class citizens in the twelve northern states, where sharia law is implemented. They are victimized in many ways. Christian girls are kidnapped and forced into marriage to Muslim men. Pastors are abducted for ransom. Churches are vandalized or completely destroyed.” — Nathan Johnson.

“The Nigerian government and the international community… have from the start done little to address the situation. This lack of participation is not surprising: they cannot even acknowledge its roots, namely, the intolerant ideology of jihad. As a result, the death toll of Christians has only risen — and will likely continue to grow exponentially — until such time that this reality is not only acknowledged but addressed.” — Raymond Ibrahim, author and Middle East expert.

Christians are being massacred in Nigeria by Fulani and Boko Haram jihadists — and no one seems to care.

The most severe persecution of these defenseless Christians — who make up half of Nigeria’s total population — has been taking place mostly in the Muslim north of the country, which is governed by sharia law, and in the states known as the “Middle Belt,” which are a transition zone between the northern and southern states.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14091/ayatollah-plays-his-joker

The summoning of Iraqi mercenaries showed that Khamenei isn’t quite sure of the regime’s military and security apparatus and, when the chips are down, relies on his foreign legion.

Soon, however, it became clear that “Islam’s bravest soldier since Imam Ali,” Major-General Qassem Soleimani, owed part of his reputation to bluffing and his talent for self-aggrandizement.

Western gullibility has contributed to overrating a brutal regime and a mediocre leader, thus helping spread the fear that such regimes and leaders rely upon for their survival.

For years, “Iran experts” in the West have regarded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the “deep government” in the Islamic Republic. However, the events of the past weeks, marked by floods that wreaked havoc in 22 of Iran’s 31 provinces, may warrant a second look at that theory. The floods showed that, in real terms, Iran has no government and that the IRGC is more of a business-cum-security conglomerate than a government, deep or shallow.

The first week of chaos and confusion showed that, despite boasts by its commanders, the IRGC was unable to organize a credible rescue operation. IRGC chief Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz-Jaafari was even unable to travel to the affected provinces. Then came small but ominous protests by flood-stricken people against the IRGC, blaming it, rightly or wrongly, for causing the floods by jerry-building dams and railway lines.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/04/20/sri-lanka-bomb-attacks-kill-at-least-138-people/23714940/

COLOMBO — Easter Sunday bomb blasts at three Sri Lankan churches and three luxury hotels killed 138 people and wounded more than 400, hospital and police officials said, following a lull in major attacks since the end of the civil war 10 years ago.

In just one church, St. Sebastian’s in Katuwapitiya, north of Colombo, more than 50 people had been killed, a police official told Reuters, with pictures showing bodies on the ground, blood on the pews and a destroyed roof.

Media reported 25 people were also killed in an attack on a church in Batticaloa in Eastern Province.

The three hotels hit were the Shangri-La Colombo, Kingsbury Hotel and Cinnamon Grand Colombo. It was unclear whether there were any casualties in the hotels.

Nine foreigners were among the dead, the officials said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks in a country which was at war for decades with Tamil separatists until 2009 during which bomb blasts in the capital were common.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called a national security council meeting at his home for later in the day.

“I strongly condemn the cowardly attacks on our people today. I call upon all Sri Lankans during this tragic time to remain united and strong,” he said in a Tweet.

“Please avoid propagating unverified reports and speculation. The government is taking immediate steps to contain this situation.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14082/greece-no-go-zone-athens

“[T]he neighborhood has… platoons, companies, battalions, Kalashnikovs. I don’t know any more if we, as a police force, have the political mandate to clear the area. This region is a matter for the army now.” — Stavros Balaskas, vice president of the Greek Federation of Police Officers, April 6, 2019.

“…[T]here are now too many illegal immigrants in Exarchia who are drug traffickers [and] gun traffickers… they have essentially taken over the whole place.” — Michalis Chrysochoidis, a former Greek Minister of Citizen Protection, who was responsible for the 2002 dismantling of the “November 17” domestic terrorist organization, April 8, 2019

In Exarchia, these groups — which conduct criminal activities and terrorize local residents — have, in effect, created a “no-go zone,” where even police are afraid to enter.

An assault on members of the Hellenic Coast Guard during a drug raid in Athens on April 4 highlights a growing problem in Greece. Some opponents of the far-left Syriza-led government attribute the increasing drug traffic in the country to a dangerous alliance between political anarchists and illegal immigrants. The anarchists might be considered the Greek equivalent of the “far left”. According to Reuters:

“Many self-proclaimed anarchists – the word stems from the Greek ‘anarchia’ or absence of authority – say they are pacifist, but certain groups have few qualms about using violence. Six years of recession have fuelled a new wave of left-wing militancy, according to officials, anarchists and court testimony.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-government-considers-a-muslim-ban-11555629051

Will India remain a secular state committed to treating all faiths equally, or will it morph into an explicitly Hindu nation whose Muslim minority is kept in its place? A debate about migrants will help settle this fraught question.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party wants to fast-track Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from neighboring countries while pointedly excluding Muslims. This foolish idea may win the BJP votes in the current election, but at the cost of undermining interfaith harmony, seeding long-term domestic instability, and tarnishing India’s reputation for tolerance.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government failed to pass a proposed law that would make it easier for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to become Indian citizens. But as India’s six-week-long election grinds on, the issue has returned to center stage as part of a broader bid by the BJP to consolidate Hindu votes by raising the pitch of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

At a campaign rally in West Bengal last week, BJP President Amit Shah likened Muslim migrants from Bangladesh to “termites” who “are eating the grain that should go to the poor.” He promised that a BJP government would toss out all “infiltrators,” except for Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs.

A promise to welcome oppressed religious minorities is hardly objectionable. Hindus and Sikhs who happened to find themselves stranded in Islamic Pakistan after it was carved out of British India in 1947, and to a lesser extent Hindus and Buddhists in Bangladesh, have long faced persecution. In both countries, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined precipitously since partition, to under 4% in Pakistan and about 10% in Bangladesh. If India won’t throw these people a lifeline, who will?

Moreover, nobody can seriously argue that majority Sunni Muslims face persecution for their faith in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Even if they did, India could not realistically be expected to throw open its doors to hundreds of millions of people.

But it’s one thing to welcome persecuted Hindus and Sikhs to their historic homeland, and quite another explicitly to reject persecuted Muslims merely for their faith. In a constitutionally secular, multireligious nation like India, upholding the principle of nondiscrimination matters.

Mr. Shah’s remarks may apply only to illegal migrants, but they end up legitimizing a combustible idea: that only followers of so-called Indic religions can be truly Indian. This echoes the hard-line Hindu nationalist view that the country’s 172 million Muslims and 28 million Christians live in India only on sufferance.

This idea is morally repugnant and wildly impractical. Like many countries, India faces a challenge in integrating its Muslim minority and curbing fundamentalist strains of the faith that sometimes act as a conveyor belt to terrorism. This entails pushing back against radical Islam, the interpretation of the faith that seeks to order all aspects of modern life by medieval Islamic precepts. But it also requires reassuring the moderate majority of Muslims that India will treat them fairly.

It’s no coincidence that the BJP targets its incendiary message toward parts of the country where some Hindus already feel threatened by demographic change. According to the 2011 census, Muslims account for about a third of the population of Assam. The state is in the midst of a messy attempt to identify migrants who settled there after 1971. In West Bengal, where Mr. Shah made his comments, more than a quarter of the population is Muslim.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14090/spain-islamist-hate-speech

“The external enemies want to tell us how to run our country…. Angela Merkel and her fellow travelers, George Soros, the immigration mafias, believe that they can tell us who can and cannot enter our country. They demand that our boats pluck so-called castaways out of the sea, transfer them to our ports and shower them with money. Who do they think we are?” — Ortega Smith, Secretary General of the Vox party, Spain.

“These…. groups stand out not because of prejudice (‘Islamophobia’ or racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear that they will impose their ways on Europe…. Other concerns deal with Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other religions” — Daniel Pipes, historian, “Europe’s Civilizationist Parties,” Commentary, November 2018.

“We all know about the lack of freedom, if not direct persecution, suffered by women and Christians in Islamic countries, while here they enjoy the generosity characteristic of freedom, democracy and reciprocity, of course, all of which they systematically deny….” — Santiago Abascal, President of the Vox party, “Trojan Horse,” Libertad Digital, December 2014.

“The left defends any gratuitous offense, even the most beastly ones, against Christians as ‘freedom of expression.’ At the same time, the mere fact of criticizing Islam is branded as ‘Islamophobia.’ …. Is this still Spain or are we in Iran?” — Elantir, blogger, Contando Estrelas.