Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, an official with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen, has urged Muslims to carry out lone-wolf strikes in Western countries two weeks after his group said it was behind the Paris attacks, SITE Monitoring reported.

“If he is capable to wage individual jihad in the Western countries that fight Islam … then that is better and more harmful,” he told the group’s media wing when asked if Muslims should quit the West to live in Islamic states, SITE reported.

Ansi added that AQAP had worked to strike Western targets outside Yemen, something that led Washington to regard the group as al Qaeda’s most active wing after it plotted foiled attacks to bring down international airliners.

“We have made efforts in external work, and the enemy knows the danger of that … We are preparing and lurking for the enemies of Allah. We incite the believers to do that,” he said.

AQAP claimed responsibility for the attack on Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris this month that killed 17 people. Two of the attackers had spent time in Yemen in 2011.

A shooting at Fort Hood military base in the US in 2009 that killed 13 people was carried out by Nidal Malik Hasan, who had been in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American cleric working in Yemen with AQAP.

Western countries fear the renewed chaos in Yemen, where Houthi militia fighters fought the presidential guard in the capital on Tuesday, could give AQAP more space to plan attacks outside the country.

Source: Christian Today

A Palestinian stabbed and wounded seven people on a Tel Aviv commuter bus during the morning rush hour on Wednesday before he was shot in the leg by a security officer as he fled, police and emergency services said.

It was the first Palestinian attack reported in Israel’s commercial capital since a soldier was stabbed to death two months ago.

Passengers on the bus said the assailant, later identified by police as a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, stabbed the driver and then others as the vehicle slowed to a stop.

“The terrorist had murder in his eyes,” one passenger, identified only as Orly said on Israel Radio.

As screaming passengers spilled out of the bus, prison officers in another vehicle at one of Tel Aviv’s busiest intersections saw the suspected attacker trying to flee and gave chase.

One of the officers shot him in the leg. Television footage showed the alleged assailant, whom police said was aged 23, lying face down in mud, his arms handcuffed behind his back.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said seven people were wounded in the stabbing, four of them seriously, and two other passengers suffered injuries while running off the bus.

During the attack, the bus driver managed to alert his dispatcher and plead over the phone for help.

“Save me. I have been seriously injured, stabbed all over my body. He has stabbed my passengers … If anything happens to me, look after my children,” the driver said, according to the dispatcher’s account on Army Radio.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Hamas Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip called it “the natural reaction to Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people”.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a direct result of venomous incitement disseminated in the Palestinian Authority against Jews and their country.”

The stabbing came amid heightened tensions in recent months between Palestinians and Israelis, particularly in the West Bank, where the Authority exercises limited self-rule, and East Jerusalem.

In November, two Palestinians killed four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue. Five Israelis and a foreign visitor died in Palestinian attacks before that incident. At least 12 Palestinians have also been killed, including some of the attackers.

Source: Reuters

A Christian mother from Cordova, Tennessee, has taken to social media to air her alarm over a school bus’ brake lights that she believes depict a symbol commonly associated with the occult and devil worship.

According to WMC News 5, the mother – who is unnamed in the report because of death threats – encountered the bus while waiting behind it at a stop sign. She immediately snapped a photo of the tail lights that in her view form a pentagram – a five-point inverted star that is enclosed in a circle.

While it is commonly associated with the occult and devil worship, the symbol is also used by other religions.

The mother expressed her outrage to WMC News 5 over the presence of that symbol on a bus that transports children to school.

“Anyone who fears a God, if not God and Jesus Christ, should be outraged,” she said. She also addressed the school officials, and told them: “If you can’t put a cross on there, you cannot put a pentagram on it.”

She further requested authorities replace the lights with solid red brake lights, stating that it sends the wrong signal to the community.

The buzz over the bus lights has divided the online community. Speaking to WMC News 5, one person describing themselves as a practicing Wiccan agreed that the symbol resembled a pentagram but said that it doesn’t automatically denote devil worship.

“Find out what it really means before you start getting riled up and all worked up about something,” another commentator told the detractors of the brake lights.

There were also those who were less convinced in the pentagram symbolism but who also questioned the point of putting a similar symbol to the occult into a bus’ brake lights.

“Why’d they put it up there,” resident Marsha Hudson wondered when interviewed by WMC News 5. “Why’d they put it upside down?”

Bus operator Durham School Services could not be reached for comment. The Cordova school district also declined to speak on the matter.

Source: Christian Today

World Vision announced in a press release Friday that it has become part of a multi-million effort to combat the deadly Ebola epidemic.

With a grant from Europe’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the Christian humanitarian organisation will work on the Ebola Vaccine Deployment, Acceptance and Compliance (EboDAC) project, a part of IMI’s $250-million Ebola+ programme aimed at providing a vaccine solution to the disease.

EboDAC is one of eight projects launched by IMI “to accelerate all aspects of vaccine development and manufacturing as well as deployment and compliance with vaccine regimens and diagnostics,” according to World Vision.

In partnership with Janssen Pharmaceutica, the Grameen Foundation, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, World Vision will work directly in West African communities to disseminate information regarding the potential vaccine and the disease, as well as to encourage people to get vaccinated.

“We are thrilled to be a partner in this critical fight against Ebola, which has ravaged communities where we work in places like Sierra Leone,” said Magnus Conteh, World Vision’s Health and Programs Coordinator in West and East Africa.

“We’ve seen firsthand the devastating impact the disease can have on families, leaving children orphaned and vulnerable. Although there is no vaccine or treatment against Ebola as yet, we hope by these groups coming together there will be a significant impact on both current and future outbreaks,” Conteh added.

A primary issue that the non-governmental organisation aims to address is the fear of shame or disgrace that many survivors and relatives of the infected face.

“The concern is that the stigma surrounding Ebola, coupled with a suspicion of vaccines in general, may deter people from getting vaccinated,” Conteh explained.

In a report published on World Vision Ireland’s website, Conteh described how not only geographical proximity, economic set-up, weak health care systems, and lack of awareness and resources, but also fear of stigmatisation, contributed to the rapid spread of the Ebola virus disease.

According to Conteh, many of those infected by the disease choose not to seek medical help, concerned that their communities will know of their condition. Even those who have survived the disease face the same fear of disgrace.

As of January 4, 2015, more than 8,000 lives have been lost to the current Ebola outbreak and more than 20,000 are confirmed or suspected to be infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organisation. With the staggering number of fatalities, the current Ebola epidemic is the largest outbreak known since the discovery of the virus in 1976.

Source: Christian Today

ISIS made an unusual move by releasing 200 Yazidi prisoners in northern Iraq, according to a Kurdish military official statement on Sunday.

The Washington Post reports that the prisoners were held captive for five months and most of them are elderly and sick people. Three of them are young children.

The ISIS militants transported the prisoners from the northern town of Tal Afar and dropped them off at Khazer Bridge, near Irbil. The prisoners are in poor health and appear to have suffered abuse. They are now being given medical treatment in the town of Alton Kupri.

“Their situation is very bad, especially the psychological condition,” said Hersh Hussein, a representative from the Irbil governor’s office who was in Alton Kupri. “Regarding other diseases we provide first aid and the most important medical treatment.”

The reason for the release appears to be that the prisoners were slowing down the militant group and that keeping them had become too much of a burden, according to a statement by Gen. Shirko Fatih, commander of Kurdish peshmerga forces in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, to the Washington Post.

“It probably became too expensive to feed them and care for them,” he said.

There have been previous reports that ISIS has forced its captives to convert to Islam. After the Sunni Muslim group attacked the town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border back in August, massacring hundreds of captive soldiers and tribal fighters, women were reportedly sexually abused, raped, and sold off. Some were taken as brides for the jihadists, while young boys were separated to train them to become jihadists.

There were an estimated 50,000 Yazidis who fled to the mountains on the day of the attack and still remain there.

Source: Christian Today