A Nigerian Bible College has been forced to close because of the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
The leaders of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria announced the closure of Kulp Bible College and also many churches because of the terrorist attacks in the last few weeks that have left more than 300 Christians dead.
“Boko Haram violence has been getting worse every day, and our members are fleeing the area by the thousands,” EYN President Samuel Dali said. “Recent attacks in Borno and Adamawa states where are our churches are located have seen Boko Haram take over the Army base. As a result, about 350 Christians have been killed.”
The headquarters of the church is also under threat from the terrorist group.
“Every night at the EYN headquarters, our staff and their families go to bed with hearts bound in fear for their lives,” Dali said. “This has forced them to be prepared to flee at any time of the night in an event an attack occurs during the hours of darkness.”
The Bible College is in Kwarhi which is one of the towns claimed in the “caliphate” that Boko Haram says they have set up in northern Nigeria.
A witness who escaped a Boko Haram attack on a Christian village said they are progressing through the area using the same tactic.
“They went from house to house shooting and killing those they came in contact with,” Luka Sabo said. “I have seen bodies of some of those killed, but it is difficult to say how many have died.”
The Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram is refusing to allow Christians to bury the bodies of other slaughtered Christians, leaving them strewn all over roads and buildings.
Residents of the city of Bama say that the stench of the rotting bodies is overwhelming.
“So many bodies litter the streets, and people are not allowed to even go and bury the dead ones. So the situation is getting worse and worse,” Borno senator and lawmaker Ahmed Zanna told the BBC..
The Nigerian government had initially denied the terrorists had overtaken Bama but later admitted the 26,000 people had fled the town because of the terrorists. The Nigerian Security Network says that Boko Haram is making what they call “lightning territorial gains” over the last two months.
Andrew Noakes of the NSN says that the danger is growing from Boko Haram because they are “beginning to operate like a conventional army.”
The U.S. has confirmed the head of an Islamist group in Somalia has been killed s part of a U.S. drone strike.
Ahmed Abdi Godane, who had run the group Al-Shabab during terror attacks in Somalia along with attacks on Christian villages and churches in surrounding countries, died when a drone strike took out a facility used for terrorist training. Ten other terrorists died in the attack.
President Obama hailed the successful strike as an example of his administration’s plan to fight terrorism.
“Godane’s removal is a major symbolic and operational loss to the largest Al Qaeda affiliate in Africa and reflects years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals,” the White House said in a statement.
Al-Shabab is most notorious for the assault on Kenya’s Westgate Mall that killed 68 people and wounded 200.
An American journalist who was brutally beheaded by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS was the grandson of holocaust survivors who had a passion for the Holy Land.
Steven Sotloff had moved to Israel in 2005 to report on the conditions there and the suffering of the Israeli people by the terrorist groups that surround them on all sides. He also traveled around the middle east reporting on the problems caused by Islamic extremism on the average Arab.
Sotloff was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in August 2013 at the border between Turkey and Syria. Two weeks ago, ISIS showed him in a video and said that they would be killing Sotloff if the U.S. did not stop air strikes against their forces.
Sotloff’s friends in Israel said that he was a passionate reporter and that he said he wanted to live life to the fullest and have “a story [he] could write a book about.” They knew something was wrong in August 2013 when he said he was leaving on a trip for a story and immediately disappeared from social media.
“He was well aware of the risks involved in his work,” a friend identified only as Abigail told Jerusalem Online. “In Syria he was almost killed by stray bullets fired at him.”
Sotloff was 31.
A Christian man in Iraq has been used “as an example” by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS in an attempt to intimidate other non-Muslims in the region.
Salen Matty Georgis, 43, had stayed in the Christian town of Bartella after ISIS overran the Iraqi forces protecting the town on August 7th. Georgis had a heart conditions that made it impossible for him to travel.
After living in hiding for three weeks, Georgis ran out of food. ISIS seized him immediately after he left his home.
“The [terrorist] patrol arrests him and tried to force him to convert to Islam,” a relative who did not want to be identified told the Christian Post. “He completely refused [to renounce Christ.] The militants beat him and tortured him until he died in their hands.”
“The international community cannot remain silent about the existential threat that Iraq’s Christian communities are facing. We are witnessing the emptying of Christians from their homelands,” Todd Daniels of International Christian Concern said. “We applaud the United Nations for meeting regarding these human rights abuses, but in the face of such horrific violence, action must be taken to ensure the protection of these communities.”
A 13-year-old Christian boy that escaped an ISIS prison camp told reporters that he saw beheadings, stonings and crucifixions carried out by the terrorists. Other Christians were forced to watch the killings.
A woman died two weeks after suffering burns all over her body in an act of sabotage by Islamists in her village.
A woman named Nazeera went into her kitchen to cook breakfast when the room suddenly burst into flames. Her four children watched as she burned alive on the floor of their home until her husband Saeed was able to put out the flames and rush her to a hospital.
Nazeera suffered third degree burns all over her body. Doctors provided treatment to minimize her pain but she suffered for two weeks before she died.
When Saeed returned home from his wife’s bedside, a relative told him his wife’s death was no accident.
The family’s Muslim neighbors, who were furious the family has accepted Christs a few years ago, had been looking for a way to kill the family in a way that appeared to be an accident. The neighbors bragged to the Islamic relative of the family that they replaced the family’s cooking oil with a form of gasoline so it would explode when she tried to cook.
Saeed and his children are now in another country under new names. They had obtained papers to leave the country two days before the explosion.
Nigeria has issued an order to shut all schools immediately out of fear the Ebola virus could break out in a student population.
“All state ministries of education are to immediately organize and ensure that at least two staff in each school, both private and public, are trained by appropriate health workers no later than Sept. 15 on how to handle any suspected case of Ebola,” said Education Minister Ibrahim Shekarau.
“And also embark on immediate sensitization of all teaching and non-teaching staff in all schools on preventive measures.”
Nigeria has reported five deaths from Ebola with most connected to a man who flew into the country after being infected in Liberia.
The World Health Organization admitted the current Ebola outbreak is out of control and has asked governments to take extraordinary steps to stop the virus from spreading. Even though Nigeria has only confirmed five cases, the government felt the shutting of the schools would be a prudent move to eradicate the outbreak in their country.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency over Ebola earlier this month.
The World Health Organization says the world’s largest historical outbreak of Ebola is likely to grow significantly bigger.
The WHO announced a $490 million dollar program to attempt to contain the virus and quell the outbreak. Doctors said it would take nine months at a minimum to get the outbreak under control and that 20,000 people could be confirmed to have contracted the virus by that point.
However, the WHO doctors admitted the likely amount of patients already infected is two to four times as high as the 3,069 officially listed cases because of patients that contracted the disease and died in rural villages.
The fatality rate of 52 percent, which has resulted in 1,552 deaths as of August 26th, has brought the total almost as high as all previously recorded outbreaks of the virus since its discovery in 1976.
British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has announced an experimental Ebola vaccine is being pushed into human studies in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health. If the results are good, they plan to send 10,000 doses immediately to infected countries.
A second American in two days has been reported killed while fighting with the Islamic extremist group ISIS.
Abdirahmaan Muhumed of Minneapolis reportedly died in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain whose death was announced yesterday. Muhumed’s family says they’ve received a photo of the 29-year-old’s body but that the State Department has not confirmed it.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said they were working to confirm the man’s death.
The U.S. military has been striking ISIS locations in Iraq as part of a campaign to assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces who are trying to drive the terrorists out of the northern part of Iraq.
Muhumed, who is confirmed to be the father of at least 9 children, told Minnesota Public Radio earlier this year that he was fighting for the terrorists.
A Muslim has to stand up for [what’s] right,” Muhumed wrote in a Jan. 2 message. “I give up this worldly life for Allah.”
He said he was “happy” that people considered him a terrorist.
The FBI reports up to 100 Americans have been confirmed to be fighting for the terrorist group.
The Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has released a new video declaring their capture of a Christian town expands their “Islamic caliphate.”
A “caliphate” is a brutal dictatorship lead by a “supreme religious and political leader” who is considered a successor to Muhammad. Strict sharia law is forced upon the people.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a 52-minute video where he declares his terrorists have established themselves in the Christian town of Gwoza and they will not be leaving.
“Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in [the town of] Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate,” Shekau declares. “By the grace of Allah, we will not leave the town. We have come to stay.”
“Allah commands us to rule the rest of the world,” Shekau says.
Nigerian officials say that the country is still intact and that the terrorists are not in control of their own “state.” However, one lawmaker admitted they are in control of the land.
“The killings are massive, but nobody can give a toll for now because nobody has been able to go to that place because the insurgents are still there,” lawmaker Peter Biye stated. “They have taken over the whole area.”
Shekau then threatened France, Israel and the United States before the video ended.
“Democracy is worse than homosexuality, worse than sleeping with your mother,” Shekau contended. “You are all pagans and we will kill you. Even if you do not attack us we will kill you … Allah commands us to kill without pity.”
