“You don’t know when and you don’t know where
they hit,” says Amir, a 55-year-old Christian
merchant. “Life here is often too difficult.”
The mortars have repeatedly hit in his mainly
Christian district of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly
killing at least 32 people and injuring dozens of
others the past two weeks.
Rebel shelling into the capital has increasingly hit
several majority-Christian districts, particularly al-
Qassaa.
The shelling and recent rebel assaults on
predominantly Christian towns have fueled fears
among Syria’s religious minorities about the growing
role of Islamic extremists and foreign fighters among
the rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad’s
rule.
Christians believe they are being targeted — in part
because of the anti-Christian sentiment among
extremists and in part as punishment for what is seen
as their support for Assad.
Youssef Naame and his wife Norma, an elderly
Christian couple from Maaloula, described how
bearded extremist Islamists stormed the northeastern
village early last month chanting “God is Great!”
“The jihadis shouted: Convert to Islam, or you will be
crucified like Jesus ,” Youssef said with a shaky voice
in his daughter’s al-Qassaa apartment.
He said they were trapped with other Christians for
three days in a small house next to the town church,
without food or electricity.
“There were snipers shooting everywhere, we were
not able to move,” he recalled. “We were so scared. I
lost my speech.”
Though some Christians oppose Assad’s brutal
crackdown on the opposition and the community has
tried to stay on the sidelines in the civil war, the
rebellion’s increasingly outspoken Islamist rhetoric
and the prominent role of Islamic extremist fighters
have pushed them toward support of the government.
Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s 23
million people.
“When you bring a Christian and make him choose
between Assad and the Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant, the answer is clear,” said Hilal Khashan, a
political scientist professor at the American
University of Beirut, referring to the al-Qaida branch
fighting alongside the rebels. “It doesn’t need much
thinking.”
The rebels have targeted other Syrian minorities,
particularly Alawites, the Shiite offshoot sect to which
Assad belongs and which is his main support base.
Altogether, ethnic and religious minorities — also
including Kurds and Druze — make up a quarter of
Syria’s population. The majority, and most rebels, are
Sunni Muslim.
But Christian areas have recently been the focus of
fighting. A week ago, rebels from the al-Qaida-linked
group Jabhat al-Nusra attacked the Christian town of
Sadad, north of Damascus, seizing control until they
were driven out Monday after fierce fighting with
government forces.
Similarly, thousands fled the ancient Christian-
majority town of Maaloula when rebels took control of
it last month, holding it for several days until
government forces retook it. With rebels in the hills
around the town, those who fled are still too afraid to
return.
Two bishops were abducted in rebel-held areas in
April, and an Italian Jesuit priest, Father Paolo
Dall’Oglio, went missing in July after traveling to
meet al-Qaida militants in the rebel-held
northeastern city of Raqqa. None has been heard
from since.
In August, rebel gunmen killed 11 people in a drive-by
shooting in central Syria as Christians celebrated a
feast day. Activists said at the time that many of
those killed were pro-government militiamen
manning checkpoints. Al-Qaida-linked fighters have
damaged and desecrated churches in areas they have
seized.
Christians in Damascus are convinced that extremists
are deliberately targeting their neighborhoods as
rebels battle government forces trying to uproot them
from the towns they control outside the capital. Al-
Qassaa is close to besieged rebel-held suburbs
where Muslim residents have pleaded for
international help to save them from starvation and
constant government bombardment.
“Recently I noticed that every Sunday, they launch
more than 15 mortars a day,” Amir said. “They are
targeting specifically Christian areas.”
Hundreds of Christians have fled al-Qassaa to other
areas of the capital or into neighboring Lebanon.
Nationwide, some 450,000 Christians have fled their
homes, part of an exodus of some 7 million during the
2 ½-year civil war, according to Church officials.
Almost all the 50,000 Christians in the mixed city of
Homs have fled, and another 200,000 have fled the
northern city of Aleppo, both battleground cities.
When insurgents occupied the strategic central town
of Qusair in 2012, about 7,000 Catholics were forced
out and their homes were looted.


Syrian Church leaders fear that Assad’s fall would
lead to an Islamist state that would spell the end to
the centuries-old existence of Christians on Syrian
soil.

“We are not taking any sides in the conflict,” Bishop
Luka, deputy leader of the Syriac Orthodox Church,
said at his headquarters in the historic Damascus Old
Town.
“We are standing alongside the country, because this
country is ours,” he said. “If the country is gone, we
have nothing left. Nothing will remain of us. “



http://www.informationng.com/2013/10/jihadis-to-syrian-christians-convert-to-islam-or-you-will-be-crucified-like-jesus.html

I used to support the rebels because I felt no leader should rule a country as long as Assad did, but now - I'm not so sure......

By there fruits,we shall know them,religion of peace indeed.