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Isis video purports to show massacre of two groups of ‘Ethiopian Christians’ – Guardian

Islamic State footage features rant against Christian crusaders, and shows 15 men beheaded on beach and another 15 shot in the head in scrubland Islamic State has released a video purporting to depict the massacre of

Islamic State footage features rant against Christian crusaders, and shows 15 men beheaded on beach and another 15 shot in the head in scrubland

Islamic State has released a video purporting to depict the massacre of 30 Ethiopians, the second incident of mass slaughter of Christians by the terror group in its redoubt in Libya.

The beheadings and shootings publicised by the group are the latest assault on minorities across the Middle East, thousands of whom have been forced to abandon ancestral homes to flee the group’s broadening reach in the region.

It follows a video released in February that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts on the shores of the Mediterranean, a move that prompted air strikes by the government of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi against the group’s stronghold in a Libya torn by civil strife that has enabled Isis’s entrenchment.

The footage, released on Sunday, depicts the brutal beheading of 15 Ethiopian Christians by masked Isis militants, their blood staining the surf on a strip of beach, as well as another scene in a desert landscape where masked gunmen shoot another 15 Ethiopians with rifles in the back of the head.

“To the nation of the cross, we’re back again,” says a masked militant in the video before the execution. “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap.”

“We swear to Allah … you will not have safety even in your dreams until you embrace Islam,” he added.

Ethiopia hit out at the atrocity. “We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.

The 29-minute video, titled Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence, appeared primarily aimed at offering religious justification for the targeting of Christians, saying their slaughter is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam or decline to pay a protection tax in lands where the terror group holds sway.

It also sought to depict Christians living in areas under its control as being treated respectfully and fairly by its courts.

Thousands of Iraq’s Christians fled their ancestral homes in the Nineveh plains last summer, fearing death and forced conversions as the lightning Isis offensive swept through northern Iraq.

Other minorities such as the Yazidis have also faced mass starvation and slavery at the hands of the terror group, which has ethnically cleansed large swaths of Iraq and massacred thousands.

It has also destroyed significant portions of the ancient heritage of Iraq’s Assyrian community, Shia and Christian shrines that Isis says are polytheistic and contrary to its brand of puritanical Islam.

The group’s rampage has all but ended millennia of coexistence between Iraq’s diverse communities.

The video, which features the same high production values common in the group’s media releases and computer generated scenes of old Islamic battles, begins with a recounting of the early history of Christianity and an outline of the schisms that led to the creation of the Coptic, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as well as the development of Protestantism.

The video condemns the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of apostasy, and brands Christians as infidels. The narrator says Christians must pay the “jizya” – a protection tax imposed on them during the early Islamic conquests in Asia and Europe, or face slaughter.

An Isis cleric, Abu Malik Anas An-Nashwan, offered religious justifications for fighting non-Muslims, saying it is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam or pay the protection tithe.

He says in the video that Christians in Raqqa, Islamic State’s capital in Syria, have refused to convert but pay the jizya to the group, and its sharia courts rule on their disputes with Muslims, and features interviews with Christians living in areas under the group’s rule who claim to be living in safety.

An-Nashwan sought to justify the forced exodus of Iraq’s Christians, saying they refused to meet Isis representatives and the payment of the jizya. He portrayed their exodus as a mercy bestowed upon them by Islamic State, which he said chose not to slaughter them instead.

The video then shows scenes of Isis fighters destroying churches, crosses and paintings depicting the Virgin Mary, before moving on to show the massacre of the Ethiopian Christians, indicating the price of religious minorities defying the militant group’s edicts.

Many Ethiopian Christians are part of the Coptic Church, and travel to NorthAfrica seeking employment or as a transit route to Europe.

“We tell Christians everywhere that the Islamic State will spread, God willing,” An-Nashwan says at the end of the video. “It will reach you even if you are in fortresses. Those who embrace Islam or jizya will be safe. But those who refuse … will have nothing from us but the edge of the sword. The men will be killed, the women and children enslaved, and the money seized. That is Allah and the prophet’s judgment.”

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64 COMMENTS
  • Henok Negash April 19, 2015

    Somalia and Yemen have demonstrated how terrorist groups take advantage of the absence of state authority to recruit members and plan and execute attacks. Groups such as al-Qaeda could find a fertile breeding ground among the increasingly frustrated and lost Muslim population of Eritrea.
    Eritrea is almost a dysfunctional and a failed state. But we need to have a thinking and problem solving approach in order to find a solution whereby the Islamo fascists and terrorists will not be able to sneak in during the current confusion. Our Christian Ethiopian or Eritrean brothers precious life should never be wasted or abused in a savage Islamic Arab world. If the Muslims believe killing innocent Christians would reward them an Islamic heaven then they are just animals and should go to animals hell instead.

  • UNCLE SYE April 19, 2015

    Eritrawi ,

    When our gedli started it had a recruiting motto “Allah yensir al din Islam”..meanning ,”may God exhalt the moslem religion”.
    So Isis is kind of cousin of our Gedli, using religion as a weapon to struggle politically.

    • AHMED SALEH April 19, 2015

      Are you insane to come with foolish comments to degrade Eritrean revolution legacy
      without any shame in Eritrean forum ? I guess you are .

  • Pawlos T. April 19, 2015

    Let us remind our Ethiopian brothers and sisters that highland Eritreans had fought against the backward Arab jihadists and slave traders, against the atrocious Turks and the notorious bastard Egyptians for centuries in and centuries out in order to defend the Habesha land, the Habesha way of life and the beautiful Habesha culture and pure identity. The loss of Eritreans to the savage barbaric Islamic Arab is a real tragic to the Ethiopians. Lets be united and one as before so the backward jihadists don’t dare touching us as the all mighty God is always on the side of Israel & Ethiopia (with highland Eritrea included).

  • berhan gedem April 19, 2015

    response to eritrawi before you compere Islam and Gedli you have to read the difference don’t expose your foolishness or lack of wisdom read well before in order to get felower.

  • Simon G. April 19, 2015

    Let’s just imagine for a moment that we were on of these innocent victims. How do you feel? This is really a terrible way to die. I can’t find any words to express my anger and sadness.
    I am not sure how these criminals expect to got to heaven by slicing human beings throats. Even an animal would have hard time to do this kind of act of savageness. Not a drop of blood do these people carry to express any humanity.
    RIP those innocent Ethiopians who died on these non-human’s hands.

  • TiEgsti.G April 19, 2015

    Ato Amanuel Eyassu or staffs of demo.archive.assenna.com,
    Thank you all for warning and reminding us not to watch it if like myself are faint heart.
    How could this cruel and heartless beasts do this to poor Ethiopians when it was Ethiopia/Abyssinia that accepted and gave a refugee to the followers of Mohammed who were being presecuted and chased like animals by their own Moslems? If it wasn’t for peaceful Ethiopia their islamic religion would not have flourished and spread like a disease to our region.
    All Africans but Eitreans and Ethiopians in particular, should simply unite as ONE under their natural faith of TEWAHDO, and tell the savage moslem Arabs to roll back and gather in their dry desert Arabia caves.

  • FM April 19, 2015

    I cannot believe some of our fellow Eritreans use this tragic events as political score of any sorts. How unfortunate! Our hearts goes to the victims and their families. It does not matter whether the victims were Eritreans, Ethiopians, Coptic Egyptians, Syrians, event Muslims, Jewish or Christians; they are victims of monstrous atrocities by people whose ideology can only come from the devil alone not from God, regardless what other names and attributes projected Allah, Amlakh, Elohim to the Almighty and Benevolent who instucts us to love and take care of each other.

    • AHMED SALEH April 19, 2015

      FM
      It is unfortunate scenario to witness when we witness people lean into
      religious extremism to escape from dictatorship and social hopelessness
      instead standing up firm against wrongs .
      The enemy is not religion but radicalism and extremism which make big
      Noise nowadays . And I feel sorry for Moslems young generation who lost
      their rich religious tradition to apathy and extremism for self destruction .

  • Suleiman Salim April 19, 2015

    Religious extremism should never be given a space to flourish.

  • Anti-Higdef April 19, 2015

    A barbaric group calling itself ISIS is killing innocent Christians from Horn. As a Muslim I say not in my name. I condemn this criminal act in strongest terms and call upon peace loving people regardless of their faith, to do everything possible to fight ISIS, till they disappear from the face of earth.
    By the way, there are people in Lybia who say that ISIS chapter there is organized by former intelligence officers of Gaddafi era, who want press European countries to intervene militarily in the country.

    That said, the comments on Assenna forum by some extremists, who pose as Eritrean Christians, and condemn Islam as religion and seem to be ready to declare war on Eritrean Muslims every time something happens in Middle East, shows the true color of a few Ethiopianists who are trying their best to ignite religious war in Eritrea at any cost, thinking this will reverse Eritrean independence. To such people I say, you are wasting your time. Your efforts will not succeed.
    Eritrea is there to remain forever and independent and sovereign State. Beside, anti-Islamic propaganda you funnel here, will affect also the very country you think you are serving, because Ethiopia is not a Christian nation anymore, you are living in the past, unable to see the current reality because you are blinded by hatred.

  • awate April 20, 2015

    We Eritrean belong to both Islam and Christianity, just lets observe deeply and you will fined the majority of us are blood related, if not a close family member you will have a distant cousin. Take the Blen for example, there muslim Blen and Christian Blen. And if take some ones lineage, you find him with muslim Grandfather and a Christian great-grandfather. And the same goes with the others. We have a Musim Saho and Chirtian Saho, and the same goes with, Tigrinia, Tigre, Kunama, Afer. What happened
    to those innocent people saddening and tragic to all of us, but we should been realistic and expect this to happen even there was a warning from either assenna or awate.com a few months ago.
    But one of the issues is whether demo.archive.assenna.com or awate.com to censer the comment that is posted by these imposters who are trying hard to creat a division among us by presenting every crime that is committed in a distant land to be a crime committed or potentially to be committed by Eritrean against Eritrean. Yes may be there are a few Eritrean with you, but you Malelit inspired imposters never succeed in creating Abay tigray at the expense of Eritrea.

    • Anti-Higdef April 20, 2015

      “Yes may be there are a few Eritrean with you, but you Malelit inspired imposters never succeed in creating Abay tigray at the expense of Eritrea.”

      awate

      I don’t think there are many genuine Eritreans among the dogs that bark at Asmarino. A few Eritrea haters who were born and brought up in Eritrea, but who always felt they are Ethiopians, are behind the hate mongering campaign. I don’t think either the Tigreyans have much interest in this type of politics, they know it’s going to damage Tigray and disrupt its development goals.
      Religious war declared on Eritrean Muslims, will not stop at Eritrea’s threshold. The situation in Tigray and Ethiopia is not what it used to be 30 or 40 years ago, when the leaders of era were openly telling Ethiopian Muslims “you are settlers in this country”.
      Many of those who want put pressure on Eritrean Christians to regret for having fought for independent Eritrea are old men who still dream to defeat Weyane, and bring back Hailesellasie from grave and restore the Ahmara supremacy over Oromo and all non-Habesha people of the Horn.
      Genuine Highlanders who paid heavy price to put back Eritrea on the world map, know what is happening to their people under the regime of the rootless “Deki Komaro”. They won’t abandon Eritrea and opt for second class citizens in Greater Tigray, simply because a monster is cutting it to pieces, while his cousins are enjoying the show, and adding insult to the injury.

      • Genet-orginal April 20, 2015

        Anti-higdef
        Well said!
        It is pity, for those people who were born and brought up in Eritrea to beat the drum of hate, division and eradication of Eritrean people and the nation of Eritrea. It is just pity!

        • AHMED SALEH April 20, 2015

          In this forum experience taught us to identify suspicious
          commentators with hidden agenda . We are Eritreans &
          we know well the expectation of our people feed back from
          both side pro-con partisan politics .
          Only a fool allow to be fooled again and again . We had enough and choose to stop our weakness of trust on strangers more than our own natives Eritreans .
          Eritrea for Eritreans is not for sale , no compromise .

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