200 attacks

There have been, according to data published in PLOS Medicine, 200 health care-related attacks in the governorates of Aleppo, Idleb, Homs and Hama, Syria. Over 2016 that averages out to more than one attack every other day, according the the researcher, from the University of California.

In the attacks her team analyzed, 112 health-care staff and 185 patients died. As a result of the attacks, eight clinics and hospitals were permanently closed and another 41 health-care facilities closed temporarily. The majority of attacks occurred via aerial bombing.

Deliberately bombing a medical facility is a violation of humanitarian law.

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Suicide Bomber Kills

Imagine election season is coming up and you need to go pick up your voter identification so you can participate in the process of governing your nation.

Now imagine that a suicide bomber shows up online and detonates his vest killing 57 people and wounding 100 others.

The Taliban urged people to stay home from this election, as they consider it rigged by the United States to install pro-Western leaders.  Boycott the polls.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the carnage.

Think about this next time you go to the polls to cast a vote.

on trial

Andrew Brunson has been living in Turkey for the last 23 years where he and his wife have raised their three children.  Andrew was ministering at the Resurrection Church in the western city of Izmir when he was detained in October 2016.

Andrew was arrested during the mass detentions after the July 2016 failed coup attempt.  He is accused of being a terrorist.  He is accused of having links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and to the network of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric in the US. Turkey blames Gulen for the coup attempt.

 

Brunson allegedly revealed state secrets and communicated who were gathering information that would have strategic importance during a war.  The evidence against Brunson came from his phone, authorities say, and from witnesses whose identity has not been revealed.

A spokesperson of the Association of Protestant Churches said Brunson was not connected to any political organizations. “He’s not guilty, he’s not a spy, he’s not working for CIA or other kind of organization,” Tufan said. “He’s just a [pastor].”

“He’s not guilty, he’s not a spy, he’s not working for CIA or other kind of organization,” Tufan said. “He’s just a [pastor].”

Other U.S. citizens are being detained in Turkey, including a NASA scientist who was sentenced to over seven years in prison on terrorism charges.

What does Turkey want?  The US to send them Gulen in exchange for Brunson.

 

Car bombing in Egypt

A vehicle rigged with explosives blew up in the Rosdy District in the eastern part of Alexandria.   The attack targeted chief police Major General Mostafa al-Nem, who was driving by in his motorcade at the moment of the blast.

One police officer died and four people are wounded as the result of the attack.

 

from World Watch Monitor

Fourteen villages were attacked and at least 85 peopled killed in Christian villages in Nigeria.  Locals believe that the government won’t step in to stop the slaughter because the perpetrators are Fulani, who are President Muhammadu Buhari’s kinsmen. Up to 3,000 villagers are taking refuge with their relatives in the neighboring communities in the Jos North local government area.  These families have been displaced from their ancestral homes and had their farmland destroyed.

Fighter jets sent by the Nigerian Air Force fired rockets at villages where Fulani herdsmen were attacking Christian residents, according to a report released this week by Amnesty International.

Whether Buhari is complicit or Christians think he is doesn’t speak well for the rule of law in Nigeria.

bombing a hospital?

A hospital built under 60 feet of rock in a rebel-held part of central Syria, one of the best protected in the country, was wrecked by a powerful air strike.

No casualties are reported but aid workers say it is the worst in a wave of attacks against hospitals in Syria. The reason there were no deaths seemed to be that staff and patients were evacuated to a safe room when they heard incoming jets.

The facility performed 150 major surgery procedures a month and serves a population of 50,000 people.

103 Killed, 235 Wounded

It was a bloody Saturday in Kabul, Afghanistan. A suicide car bombing killed at least 103 and wounded at least another 235 people near a police checkpoint.

Saturday’s attacker made it through one security checkpoint by driving an ambulance and claiming to be taking a patient to a hospital. The driver then detonated explosives at a second checkpoint near government buildings and embassies.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Responsibility is “the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.”

How evil is this, to use an ambulance to murder innocent people?