Mindy0214bWith the escalation of fighting in the Syrian city of Homs, area pastors are also reporting a significant uptick in the number of Christian deaths, targeted killings, and kidnappings.

According to those sources, Islamic militants fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have killed more than 200 Christians in the city of nearly 1 million in recent days, including entire families with young children. They also have kidnapped Christians and demanded ransom payments. Some have been released, but in at least two cases in Homs the bodies of the kidnapped men were found after ransom had been paid.

“What we are hearing firsthand is the exact opposite of what’s being reported in Western media,” said Victor Atallah, director of Middle East Reformed Fellowship based in Cyprus. “Most Syrians are most frightened of an Islamic takeover in Syria and are fleeing not from the government but from Islamic thugs from all over.” Atallah said he had received reports of fighters in the Homs area from Lebanon, western Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Throughout the now 11-month-old Syrian uprising, Homs has been a magnet for Islamic militants and a lightning rod in the conflict between rebels who want to overthrow the government and the army of the Assad regime. The city, Syria’s third largest behind the capital city of Damascus and Aleppo, is an industrial center situated 100 miles north of the capital along a corridor of surface trade with Lebanon and shipping ports. Sixty years ago Homs was nearly half Christian, but church members now make up only a little more than 10 percent of the population. Christians in the area are mostly Orthodox, but there is a historic Catholic church in the city center, Armenian congregations, and a sizeable Presbyterian church, as well as others in the immediate, surrounding area. … COMPLETE STORY >>

Read Mindy Belz’s complete Web Extra report.