South African Soldiers Killed in the Central African Republic

News 24:

Bangui – South African soldiers in the Central African Republic are seeking safe passage to the airport after taking heavy losses during fighting with Seleka rebels, Reuters reports.

The agency said at least nine SA soldiers were killed.

“I saw the bodies of six South African soldiers. They had all been shot,” a Reuters witness said. Later, he saw three more bodies in burned-out South African military vehicles.

Amy Martin of the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, told the BBC World Service that the SA troops had retreated to their barracks and were seeking safe passage to the airport.

Seleka spokesperson Eric Massi said the rebels had broken through a line of South African soldiers during their push into the city.

Around 400 South African troops were deployed in the country as military trainers.

Regional peacekeeping sources said the South Africans had fought alongside the Central African Republic’s army on Saturday to prevent rebels entering the capital.

They took substantial losses and have asked for French support to load their troops and take off,” said the source.

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Sunday night that widespread looting had broken out in the CAR capital.

Homes, shops, restaurants and cars were all fair game for looters in scenes repeated across the city.

“There’s a lot of looting by armed men. They break down the doors to go looting and then, afterwards, the people come and help themselves too,” said Nicaise Kabissou, who lives in the city centre.

Massi had promised on Saturday that the rebel coalition “will have zero tolerance for any looting, exaction or settling of scores”.

But that warning went unheeded on the ground.

 

Iraq War: A Photographer’s Notebook

Reuters:

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT It’s been 10 years since U.S.-led forces waged war in Iraq. In this collection of some of Reuters iconic images from the conflict, the photographers provide a personal account of the events they captured.

45 photos here.

God have mercy…

 

 

A Soldier’s Requiem, Never Fading Away

… Every day there are small reminders, and here was one: Julia would hang the ornament because her father, Lt. Col. Paul J. Finken, died in Iraq six years ago, killed by a roadside bomb on the final patrol of his yearlong deployment.

The moment capsulized one family’s self-guided journey through loss. Over six years, Mrs. Finken and her daughters, ages 14, 12 and 10, have struggled through different phases of mourning, sometimes together, sometimes on individual calendars. But the one constant has been their determination to remember, without letting memory become a millstone.

“I don’t want to squeeze the life out of the memories, because I want them to still be precious and mean something,” Mrs. Finken said. “I also don’t want the memories to drag us down. Because memories can do that sometimes.”

Since 2001, about 4,800 children have lost a parent and 3,650 adults have lost a spouse to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For most, finding that balance between holding on to lost loved ones — and releasing them — will be the key to recovery…

Heart-wrenching…

Read on in the NY Times here.

Christians Evacuated from Sudan

Barnabas Fund has transported over 2,300 Christians from Sudan since the start of its rescue mission four months ago.

The Christians are being evacuated because of increasing hostility in the majority-Muslim country.

After South Sudan gained independence in 2011, the largely Christian Southerners living in Sudan lost their citizenship rights and were ordered to leave.

There is little sign of conditions improving as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has vowed to bring in a fully Islamic constitution and strengthen sharia law…

Read on here.

 

Syria: Nothing But A Field Of Ruins

So has warned Pope Benedict XVI:

Pope Benedict XVI has urged diplomats to supply urgent aid to Syria to relieve civilian suffering, while expressing hope that Jerusalem would become `’a city of peace and not of division.”

Benedict addressed urgent crises around the world in an annual speech to diplomats Monday. Starting with the Middle East, `’that privileged region in God’s plan,” the pope warned that continued conflict in Syria will leave `’nothing but a field of ruins.”  The pope said he hoped Israelis and Palestinians will commit `’to peaceful coexistence.”

Addressing the economic crisis closer to home, the pontiff called on the European Union to make `’farsighted” and `’difficult” policy decisions favoring growth.

He called on policymakers to monitor closely the disparity between rich and poor as they do differences in bond market yields.

 

General Norman Schwarzkopf Has Died

He was 78.

Norman Schwarzkopf, the US general who led 1991 Operation Desert Storm, which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has died at the age of 78.

The Telegraph continues:

Gen Schwarzkopf, an American hero known popularly as “Stormin Norman,” died at his home in Tampa. The cause of death was not known.

Former president George HW Bush, himself sick in intensive care in Texas, was first to issue a statement mourning the loss of the man he chose to lead the war that came to define both of their careers.

“Barbara and I mourn the loss of a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation,” his statement said.

“A distinguished member of that Long Gray Line hailing from West Point, General Norm Schwarzkopf, to me, epitomized the ‘duty, service, country’ creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises,” Mr Bush said.

“More than that, he was a good and decent man – and a dear friend. Barbara and I send our condolences to his wife Brenda and his wonderful family.”

In a statement the White House said: “We’ve lost an American original.”

Leon Panetta, the defence secretary, said: “The men and women of the Department of Defense join me in mourning the loss of General Norman Schwarzkopf”.

Mr Panetta said the decorated combat leader had in “35 years of service in uniform left an indelible imprint on the United States military and the country.”

There’s more here.

There are three quotes of his that I always seem to remember:

• War is a profane thing.

• The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

• When placed in command, take charge.

 

Syrian Christians Face Starvation, Deadly Attacks

Minority Christians in Syria’s largest city Aleppo said Friday, December 7, they face starvation after dozens of believers already died in targeted attacks rocking Christian areas of the war-torn country.

“Bread isn’t found since last week, there is no wheat in the city and of course fuel is not available so…bakeries are not working,” said Majd Ajji, whose father runs a Baptist church in Aleppo, where airstrikes and gun battles transformed buildings into heaps of rubble.

Witnesses saw children fighting for food.

Most of the city, 310 kilometers (193 miles) northwest from capital Damascus, is now reportedly under rebel control but the situation remains tense, Ajji said in an email obtained by BosNewsLife.

“Fighting didn’t stop in the city,” Lebanon-based Ajji wrote on behalf of his father, Reverend Mouner Ajji, who remains in besieged Aleppo

Christian aid and advocacy group Open Doors said it received a letter from a Christian in Aleppo, claiming some hundred rebels invaded a Christian area and infiltrated a main street. “The Syrian army quickly retook the zone and no lives were lost,” it said…

Read on here.

 

Terror in School

Sometimes, you simply have the right to defend yourself.

 

Syria Has Vanished from the Internet

#SyriaBlackout.  Time to pray indeed.

Reports are breaking that Syria has vanished from the Internet and that telecommunications are interrupted. Quite understandably with the fighting in and around Damascus this is being interpreted as a potentially ominous sign:

Renesys is still investigating what’s going on, but, as we’ve seen in other countries, cutting off the Internet is usually meant to try and control the flow of information to the world. It’s also a pretty sure sign that the regime of Bashar al-Assad is either getting nervous about how it is being perceived in the world, or that it is planning something unspeakably harsh in the coming days and wants as little information emerging from that country as possible.

I would urge all praying types to send one up for Syria and of course for the beleaguered Christian community which finds itself in a perilous and precarious position.

There is a Twitter hashtag to follow: #SyriaBlackout.

 

Why the Free World Must Stand with Israel

The Telegraph:

 

The Israeli prime minister’s speech before the United Nations in September is a must-read for anyone who cares about the defence of freedom in the Middle East, and the wider war against Islamist terrorism. Netanyahu laid out in stark terms what he views as an epic “battle being waged between the modern and the medieval,” between the forces of freedom and “the medieval forces of radical Islam.” As Netanyahu declared at the UN General Assembly:

The forces of modernity seek a bright future in which the rights of all are protected, in which an ever-expanding digital library is available in the palm of every child, in which every life is sacred. The forces of medievalism seek a world in which women and minorities are subjugated, in which knowledge is suppressed, in which not life but death is glorified.

These forces clash around the globe, but nowhere more starkly than in the Middle East. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the rights of all our citizens: men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians – Israel wants to see a Middle East of progress and peace. We want to see the three great religions that sprang forth from our region – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – coexist in peace and in mutual respect.

Yet the medieval forces of radical Islam, whom you just saw storming the American embassies throughout the Middle East, they oppose this. They seek supremacy over all Muslims. They are bent on world conquest. They want to destroy Israel, Europe, America. They want to extinguish freedom. They want to end the modern world.

Militant Islam has many branches – from the rulers of Iran with their Revolutionary Guards to al Qaeda terrorists to the radical cells lurking in every part of the globe. But despite their differences, they are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. That intolerance is directed first at their fellow Muslims, and then to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, anyone who doesn’t submit to their unforgiving creed. They want to drag humanity back to an age of unquestioning dogma and unrelenting conflict. I am sure of one thing. Ultimately they will fail. Ultimately, light will penetrate the darkness.

As Hamas’ rockets rain down on Israel, even striking Tel Aviv and threatening Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s words ring true. This is a confrontation between the freest country in the Middle East, and brutal terrorists blinded with hatred who seek to advance their goals by murdering civilians and indiscriminate terror. The thugs of Hamas share the same goal as the Mullahs in Tehran, who provide the bombs, weapons and resources used to sustain a huge terrorist enterprise – i.e., the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamist state.

Hamas’ Iranian-supplied missile stockpile in Gaza is now estimated to be 10,000 strong. For the Israelis, this is a war of survival in an intensely hostile region. They deserve the full support of the United States, Great Britain, and the Western world, which must stand shoulder to shoulder with a close friend and ally. As Hamas’ offensive illustrates, Israel is the front line of a global conflict between the forces of freedom and the forces of tyranny and barbarism.

This is not just Israel’s war, it is ours too. The threat Israel faces from the Jihadists is the same threat the West faces on the streets of London, Paris, Washington or Berlin. Al Qaeda, which has had significant ties in the past to Hamas, will be closely watching the outcome of Israel’s military campaign. An emphatic defeat for Hamas will be a huge blow not only to the Islamist dictatorship in Tehran, but to the followers of Bin Laden as well.