ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. That’s a paraphrase of remarks made on the House floor by Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson, who was parroting Barack Obama’s view that the terrorist outfit operates independently of any religion. If that is true, then how does the administration explain ISIS’s destruction of a church in Syria on Sunday?
And not just any church, either. From CNSNews:
An Armenian Apostolic church constructed in memory of the victims of the 20th century Armenian genocide was “rigged and dynamited” on Sunday by forces loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), according to reports from Syria’s government news agency.
The Armenian Holy Martyrs Church in Der Zor, located in the Syrian desert 280 miles northeast of Damascus, was constructed in memory of the victims of the 1916 Armenian genocide and consecrated in 1991.
The site was chosen because Der Zor is believed to have housed death camps in which an estimated 150,000 to 400,000 Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks 100 years ago. The destroyed church included a museum housing the remains of some of the genocide victims.
The article contains a statement by Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan, which condemned the act:
This horrible barbarity committed against the sacred place shows once again the savage nature of the so-called Islamic State terror group. The international community must immediately stop and eradicate this plague posing a threat to civilized humanity.
Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church, also released a statement
This crime committed on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and on the 23rd anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Armenia, we consider to be a barbarian act.
Let the hands behind this terrorist act know that Deir ez-Zor, this sacred place of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, commemorating the memory of our martyrs and symbolizing the fight of our people for justice, cannot be demolished from the memory of our people.
Here is what the administration had to say: [Sound of crickets]
