Ancient relics and Christian crosses are defaced, destroyed, and replaced with the black flag of ISIS in these appalling new photos released by the Islamic State.
Jihadists destroy Christian statues, icons and relics because they believe that they are idols. ISIS thugs believe in a fundamentalist form of Islam and believe they are restoring a 7th-century style caliphate.
In addition to ISIS’ campaign to force unbelievers to “convert, or die by the sword,” ISIS has also been busy destroying 3,000 year-old priceless Assyrian statues, bulldozing ancient sites, and destroying irreplaceable manuscripts and books in the Mosul Central Library.
Militants topple crosses on Christian churches in Nineveh.
In August, Iraqi Christians were forced to flee from their homes, and many were enslaved, beheaded, or crucified. Their homes and belongings were stolen by the Islamic State.
In the ensuing months, ISIS has been terrorizing the world with gruesome Youtube videos of beheadings of non-believers in Syria, Iraq and most recently, in Libya.
The majority-Muslim countries of Egypt and Jordan responded to the beheading of their citizens by promising “retribution like ISIS hasn’t seen” and bombing ISIS strongholds, against advice from the Obama administration.
In a very rare move, the Vatican has approved military intervention, although they cautioned that Middle Eastern Muslim countries must be included.
“We have to stop this kind of genocide,” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.N. in an interview with Crux on Friday. “Otherwise we’ll be crying out in the future about why we didn’t do something, why we allowed such a terrible tragedy to happen.”
Photos courtesy of: MEMRITV