Zionist and Takfiri Groups Unite to Expel Christians

Ali Moussawi

It is not the first time in the history of the Takfiri and fundamentalist groups that a statement threatening Christians in Lebanon is issued; a statement menacing of turning their life into hell, sabotaging their churches and preventing their bells from tolling, destroying virgin Mary's icons, breaking their crosses, killing them and cleansing Bekaa and Lebanon from them.

In fact, back in 2007, there was a quite similar scheme to bomb the city of Zahle and destroy the statue of Virgin Mary there, by one of the subversive rings affiliated with al-Qaeda organization, and which the Lebanese State Security agency managed to dismantle and the military judiciary to prosecute.

As the scheme was on-the-table behind closed doors and about to be executed, just awaiting hour zero to stage the attack without any trace that indicates the perpetrator, this systematized intimidation turned into a clear out-an-out verbal message in its content. Difference only lied in time lapse. These groups try to take advantage of the changes that swept the regions, especially in Syria, and their reverberations on Lebanon and the neighborhood.

Things were different before; when the terrorist cell, led by Saudi Fahd Abdul Aziz al-Mughames, born 1979, emerged, al-Qaeda was trying to clinch its presence and embrace itself with support in Tripoli and the north and Majdal Anjar village, in addition to a number of towns in West Bekaa, after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri on February 14, 2005.

The statement issued by the group that calls themselves the "Brigade of the Free Sunnis of Baalbeck,"-that has already claimed responsibility for the explosion of many booby-trapped cars, firing rockets on safe towns in Bekaa, and the killing of leader Hassan Lakkis from the Islamic Resistance in December 2013 simultaneously with the Israeli enemy admitting being behind the crime-is nothing but a completion of the religious terrorism scheme concocted by al-Qaeda and its subordinates, and an attempt to empty the region from Christians. This is what was clearly proven in Iraq, then in Syria, without mentioning the Zionist role in deporting Palestinian Christians, only so that Zionists and Takfiris appear to have united to expel Christians from the entire region. This is what the aforementioned statement referred to as "the cleansing operation."

Before the statement was issued via Twitter, TV and satellite channels broadcast live scenes that reached the entire world, about the conduct of Takfiris in Syria, how they looted churches, broke crosses, kidnapped Orthodox Bishops Yuhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazegi in April 2013, detained 13 nuns in Maaloula for about one hundred days. In other terms, these groups execute whatever they threaten of without any humanitarian consideration or religious boundary. Therefore, their statement must be viewed with responsibility and vigilance to prevent any attack, like what happened with al-Qaeda cell in Barr Elias village.

As a matter of fact, the statement aims to sow seeds of strife in Lebanon, incite on inter-killing and shake security and coexistence, by using terms such as "crusaders," "the churches of polytheism," and "stop ringing the bells of po0lytheism," something that the Lebanese enforced law penalizes.

As this dreadful statement was issued, the Lebanese recalled a former terrorism plan that one al-Qaeda ring residing in Barr Elias in Bekaa intended to execute as they schemed to bombard the city of Zahle and destroy the statue of Virgin Mary in Tall Shiha in order to foment a Sunni-Shia strife. Divine providence indeed saved Lebanon.

As to al-Mughames, he is the coordinator between al-Qaeda in Lebanon, Syria, and the Arab Gulf. His Syrian Emir Saladin Mohammad Saleh-who succeeded Hassan Nabaa [the Emir of the Group of 13 that admitted Hariri's assassination]-had asked him to reside in Barr Elias, form a terrorist cell, and implement a two-stage plan, whereas during the first stage, he would rent a farm in Taalabaya or Saadnayel using the names of Sunni people, and set rockets to be launched later. During the second stage, he would rent cars using the same names, booby trap them, blow them up nearby the Virgin Mary statue, then smuggle the people whose names he used to Iraq via Syria.

He would also work on running rumors that Shia people abducted the Sunni ones and used their names to carry out those terrorist acts. All this was to fuel a Sunni-Shia strife on one hand, and to tamper with Christians on the other, thus to shake security in the country.