Globe Trot: Iranian-backed militias taking Christian property in Iraq

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IRAQ: Reports surfaced this week of Iranian-backed militias in Baghdad—not ISIS affiliates but those supporting the Iraqi government—seizing Christian property and churches.

I’ve been in contact overnight with Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, who has met with government officials to bring the confiscation to their attention and clarified the reports: No churches are involved thus far, but the militias “seized homes, lands, real-estate, and businesses of Christians in Baghdad,” using falsified documents, he said. Targeted properties are in the once predominantly Christian neighborhoods of Karada, Doura, and al-Mansour, where Sako’s offices are located. This means Shiites now are taking advantage of the largely Sunni-led insurgency that has forced out nearly 1 million Christians from Iraq since the start of the U.S. war. Sako told me no force has been used in the takeovers so far, but in most cases the militia members worked with corrupt officials to get signed documents turning over empty Christian-owned property. Among many conclusions to draw, this is why a genocide declaration is important. It puts international pressure on otherwise feckless officials. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday the situation in parts of Iraq is too unstable for U.S. and Iraqi forces to conduct a mission to take back Mosul from ISIS, probably before 2017. Upcoming in WORLD from me: a story on life under ISIS in Mosul and other cities.

SYRIA: The UN is joining that cabal, suggesting an assault to rout ISIS and rebel elements from Aleppo will spark another mass exodus from Syria. Syrian and Russian forces are stepping up their combat operations in Syria’s largest city, but the situation in Aleppo is dire already: Food and medicine shortages have been the norm in many parts of the city for two years.

A family of 12 has escaped ISIS-controlled Raqqa in northern Syria, hiding in a cattle truck to get out of town, then walking 186 miles to Lebanon. They report deplorable living conditions under ISIS, including fighters taking up positions inside residences, using elderly and other Syrian civilians as human shields.

CHINA: Chinese high school students seeking to study abroad are flooding U.S. Christian schools. In 2014-15, 58 percent of the F-1 visas issued for Chinese high school students were for Catholic or Christian schools. About 28 percent of Chinese students obtained those visas to attend Catholic schools, while 30 percent were for nondenominational or Protestant-affiliated schools.

ZIMBABWE has declared a state of emergency while El Niño weather patterns slam it and other parts of southern Africa.

BULGARIA: Meet Irena Bokova, the controversial UNESCO head with a communist past, who is possibly the next UN secretary-general—and a Clinton ally.

Mindy Belz

Mindy, a former senior editor for WORLD Magazine, wrote the publication’s first cover story in 1986. She has covered wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Balkans and is author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run From ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Mindy resides in Asheville, N.C.

@MindyBelz