The Hound of Jihad
The relentlessness of Islamic jihadi enmity for non-Muslims appears to know no bounds -- sometimes even pursuing "infidels" beyond the grave. While the West may hear of the more spectacular attacks on non-Muslims -- bombed and burned churches and other places of worship, beheaded and slaughtered "infidels," and wholesale massacres -- lesser known is the fact that, far from receiving succor, the survivors often continue to be targeted.
Thus, just last New Year's Eve, December 31, 2013, as several "Christians were praising God in a field near their church building" in central Nigeria's Plateau, Muslim ethnic Fulani gunmen arrived and opened fire on the worshipers, killing a 41-year-old mother of six and a 14-year-old girl.
Kore Usman, a 34-year-old man, was also killed. His 34-year-old wife, Faith Kore Usman, explains how he was her second husband to be killed by Muslims, widowing her twice over (emphasis added):
My first husband, Davou Philip, was killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in Jol Village in Riyom Local Government Area in 2002," she said. "I had only a son with him. However, God brought me and Kore Usman together [nine years ago], and we got married. God has blessed us with four children. I thought my burden has been lifted as a widow, and now, again my second husband has been killed by Muslim gunmen."
Such stories of the same Christian minority groups being attacked once, twice, or even three or more times are not uncommon in the Muslim world. Aside from the unrelenting woes of the Nigerian widow, consider some recent events in Pakistan.
After last September's bombing of the Church of All Saints in Peshawar, where as many as 171 died -- including many women and children -- and 150 were injured, Agenzia Fides reported (emphasis added):
[T]he situation remains tense in the Pakistani society: not only tragedy but also horror. The Christians said they were 'horrified' by the rumors that link the bombs in Peshawar to the vast problem of organ trafficking: this is what some members of NGOs in civil society in Pakistan told Fides. Some of the 'jackals,' presumably local paramedics, seem to have taken advantage of the high number of deaths and injuries in order to steal the bodies of victims and exploit them for the illegal organ trade. 'If this were true, it would mean that there are criminals who are taking advantage of the suffering of Christian victims in a truly blasphemous and sacrilegious manner,' notes Fr. Mario Rodrigues, a priest of Karachi.
In other words, and in keeping with the Islamic supremacist notion that non-Muslims are subhuman "infidels" to be exploited with impunity for the benefit of "superior" Muslims, even after being slaughtered by self-styled "jihadis," the remains of slain Christians are used to make a profit and prevented a decent burial.
As for some of those who survived the church bombing in Pakistan, they were attacked, beaten, and threatened with death for mourning the loss of their loved ones too openly (emphasis added): "A Pakistani Christian family was hiding Sunday, October 13, after allegedly receiving death threats for protesting against twin suicide attacks at a historic church in the violence-plagued city of Peshawar, in which their friends were killed. According to one of these Christians, Muslim "militants" "were angry that he was openly expressing grief at an anti-violence demonstration about the loss of his friends and those who were injured in the suicide attacks."
Thus, on the westernmost fringes of the Islamic world, in Nigeria, a Christian woman loses her husband to Muslim gunmen, and when she picks up the pieces of her life, remarries, and has several children, the same Islamic tribesmen gun down her second husband, even as he worships. And on the eastern fringes of the Islamic world, in Pakistan, after a church is bombed, some of those killed are ghoulishly harvested for their organs while those who survived are attacked and threatened for daring to mourn too openly.
Such is the hound of jihad and its relentless enmity for "infidels."
Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians.