Terror Figures in West Africa

Failed States: terror training Camps

How many states are at serious risk of state failure? The World Bank has identified about 30 “low-income countries under stress,” whereas Britain’s Department for International Development has named 46 “fragile” states of concern. A report commissioned by the CIA has put the number of failing states at about 20.
Read the complete article

These states have vast parts of their countires which the cannot or will not control. It is in these places that the Jihdists train and hide.

Three elements can be said to characterize the phenomenon of the “failed State” from the political and legal point of view.

Firstly, there is the geographical and territorial aspect, namely the fact that “failed States” are essentially associated with internal and endogenous problems, even though these may incidentally have cross-border impacts. The situation confronting us then is one of an implosion rather than an explosion of the structures of power and authority, the disintegration and destructuring of States rather than their dismemberment.
Secondly, there is the political aspect, namely the internal collapse of law and order. The emphasis here is on the total or near total breakdown of structures guaranteeing law and order [2] rather than the kind of fragmentation of State authority seen in civil wars, where clearly identified military or paramilitary rebels fight either to strengthen their own position within the State or to break away from it. [3]
Thirdly, there is the functional aspect, namely the absence of bodies capable, on the one hand, of representing the State at the international level and, on the other, of being influenced by the outside world. Either no institution exists which has the authority to negotiate, represent and enforce or, if one does, it is wholly unreliable, typically acting as “statesman by day and bandit by night”.
See the remaining article by Daniel Thürer.


These are the places where terrorist training camps are happening today:

• The Pashtoon regions in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
• South Lebanon: ( Hezbollah )
• Remote Parts of Mali
• Southern Somalia
• Southern Sudan
• Eritria info

Why is this relevant to evangelical Christian Intercessors? Find out where these states are, and if you are supporting someone in Prayer who is going to or near one, Knowiung what is going on there from research will help diect you prayer.

Sheikh Muhammad Ali, head of the Palestinian Cleric's Association gave an interview on Hezbollah TV on August 19th 2005. He said the following:

Any land, any piece of land, over which flies the banner of 'There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger,' and which at a certain point belonged to the Muslims – as far as we are concerned, plundering and occupying such land is forbidden, and it is the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate this land, wherever it may be...
...When a piece of Muslim land is occupied, the duty of liberating it falls, first of all, upon the local residents, as decreed by the religious rulers. It is, first of all, the duty of the local residents...
...They [local Muslims] are the spearhead of the liberation effort. But when they are too few, or they cannot – it is the duty of the next in line to liberate this land...
...if they are unable to do it either, it becomes the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate it. According to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, not only when an entire homeland is occupied, but when 'even an inch of Muslim land is occupied, Jihad is a personal duty, a religious obligation incumbent upon everyone. A wife must go, even without her husband's permission, and a slave must go – if there are slaves – without his master's permission.' They must liberate this land – and this is when only an inch is occupied, let alone when it is Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa that are occupied."
See full article

What is Jihad to Evangelical Christians?

"As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.
The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.
Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth."

Click here for the full article by Daniel Pipes.

The next question foir consideration

What does it mean for evangelical Christians? It means that Jihad has many forms all connected in progressively more militaristic terms,

1. It means that a moral Muslim cannot interact with any believer that furthers the Christian faith. It would oppose the principle of Jihad.
2. Though some forms of Islam would tolerate Christians, it would exact a tax over them, and they would remian subject to Sharia law.
3. There is a sophsiticated system of mandetory tithe collection called Zakat that is especially active among the Shia. This funds, among other things, the humanitrian efforts aimed at winning herts and minds. (See earlier post Hezollah in Liberia)
4. We must pray that The Holy Spirit will go before us, and understand I I Samuel 17:47-

"all this assembly may know that the LORD does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the LORD'S and He will give you into our hands."

5. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnel, but are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, for the casting down of every high thing that exalts itself against the knoweldge of God.

6. Be aware of groups and individuals that are operating in your area, pray for the safety of those who interact with them, pray for favor in their eyes, that "Christ may be seen in me" That Christ would reveal himself to them in his own way and time, and ask God to be allowed to participate, if possible.

Hezbollah in Liberia

Hezbollah, a multi-national jihadist organization based in Lebanon, and on the terror watch list, has been active in Liberia for years. Though the country is predeominatly Christian, it is recovering from 15 years of civil war. In this failed state environment, Lebanese business leaders in Liberia, who control the sea-p0rts have been supporting Hezbollah in the following ways:

• Blood diamonds used to fuel the Liberian civil war were transported through established Hezbollah diamond dealers.
• Large donations were given to Hezbollah by Lebonese business leaders in Liberia and other West African Countries: one of the sources says:

"On an annual or semi-annual basis Hezbollah notifies businesses in West Africa, stretching from Mali to Cameroon, of the amount of the contribution that each is expected to make, based on fairly precise knowledge of the revenues that each business is expected to generate. This alone indicates a high level of Hezbollah penetration and interest in this revenue stream. At least once a year senior Hezbollah operatives travel through the region collecting the “donations” to be returned to Beirut. The donations are often in cash, as the Lebanese community businesses often do most of their business in cash and seek to avoid financial scrutiny by avoiding the formal banking system. Because the Lebanese Shi’ite community regularly charters aircraft to fly from different West African capitals directly to Beirut, and the flights undergo a minimum of scrutiny, flying money by courier is an easy and accessible way to move the cash.

For a glimpse of how much money Hezbollah raises in the region, consider one case. On Dec. 25, 2003, a charter flight UTA 141, scheduled to fly from Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa to Beirut, crashed on takeoff, killing all the passengers. On board were senior Hezbollah members, carrying $2 million in contributions to the organization from across the region.[6] Arab press reports said the money represented the “regular contributions the party receives from wealthy Lebanese nationals in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin and other African states.” A senior Hezbollah official was immediately dispatched to Benin to console the “sons of the Lebanese community.”[7]

-click here for the complete Douglas Farah Article

• Another Liberian source recently reported that there is regular trafic through the Monrovia, Liberia airport that never goes through customs
• There are at least three other areas under study: The Port authority, The training and arming of LURD , and several key Liberian-American citizens orchestrating the Radiclization of Liberian Muslims.

-more to follow

The Key for Intercessors: Pray that this corruption will be fully exposed, and that the extorcion of West African Merchants to fund terrorism will be result in governments taking action to stop the terror.

Islamic NGOs in Africa

....The power and influence of Islamic NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) have grown significantly in the last 25-50 years. These organizations are often a cover for the radicalization of local Islamic tribes, the expansion of multi-national jihadist influence, and outside oposition to local evangelical Christian activites.

...It may be that the battle for the hearts and minds of the lost world will be played out on earth between active multi-national Evangelical Christain and Islamic NGOS...

•In the fourteen centuries since the introduction of Islam, Muslims have played important roles in Africa's development.
•Muslims were important in the process of state-building, in creating commercial networks between parts of the continent, in introducing literacy (which saw Muslim become scribes in charge of state records), as well as in exchanges of inter-state diplomacy within Africa and beyond.

•The fall of the Ottoman empire, which ended with the Turkish abolition of the Caliphate in 1927, showed the postpoponment of mutli-national Islamic evaglelism.

• Africa was then controlled by European Colonial Rule
  •African countries began to gain their indend\ance after 1945
  •A wave of Islamic schools came to Post colonial Africa in the 1930s and 40s when europe was waring with each other
  •These were schools simple, often rural schools
  •These were focused on alternatives to corruption and the establishment of Islamic moral principles
  •Relationship evangalism seemd to be their primary evangalist method
• Post Ottoman activities
  •45-60s were characterised by Soviet-US politics and the establishment of local muslim groups and some tribal conversions
  •1960s-1970s were characterised by the transformation of community-based organisations and urban associations into “modern” urban charity and local voluntary development organisations.
• The Dawah or school movement
  •The Dawah Movement may be categorized into two; the first group belongs to
  –those who conduct the propagation of Islam to non-Muslims
  –those who target Muslims, particularly the ‘lapsed’ Muslims.
  •The two groups differ much in their objectives and activities.
  •They share a common aim and that is to propagate Islam.
• Islamic Response to Colonialsim
  The emergence of Islamic NGOs...dates back to the colonial period, and to a large extent it is a reaction against Christian missionary activities and their capacity to combine religious and educational, as well as health and social activities.
• The Scope of Islamic NGOS expand
  •African Islamic NGOs are active in:
  –Development
  –Education
  –Women,
  –Child care
  –Community health
  –Environment
  – Water
  –Sanitation
  –Shelter
  –legal assistance
  –Advocacy networking,
  –Relief, famine and food distribution
• Islamic NGOS proliferate
  •By the 1970s-1980s African NGOs began to expand rapidly under the influence of foreign NGOs,
  •To a large extent, this was a result of recurrent droughts and civil wars, in Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.
  
• Islamic NGOS Gain Influence in Africa
  •Afro-Arab dialogue was augmented by the newly founded power of the Islamic World, particularly the oil-rich Arab countries
  •There was an increase in the acceptance of foreign NGOs by some African states which began to value their contributions to public services
  •An expansion of foreign NGO activities, particularly in relief and rehabilitation in war-torn countries,
• 
  •There emerged African NGOs independent of the state, with permission to operate in the state
  •There organisational structures were similar to foreign NGOs
  •Increasing co-operation and dialogue among and within foreign and African Islamic NGOs.
• Islamic volunteerism expands
  •The range of activities in which Islamic NGOs are engaged illustrates that they are either responding to the African crisis or taking advantage of it.
  •The politics and economics of Islamic voluntarism are expanding.
  •Islamic humanitarianism gives Islamic NGOs a peculiar role relative to their secular counterparts
• Radical Islam is now acting with multi-national Purpose
  •in 1990, the National Islamic Front government in the Sudan initiated two new policy directives aimed at supporting the work of national Islamic NGOs in Africa:
  –Al-Tamkin :
  •Empowerment of Muslim minorities in regions that are dominantly Christian or animist
  
  –Al-Takaful :
  •(Social solidarity fund) whereby part of zakat is distributed amongst Islamic NGOs which in turn redistribute alms amongst the Muslim poor
• The Zakat: an Islamic Distsinction
  
  •In the absence of an Islamic state, Islamic NGOs and voluntary groups undertake the role of the state by claiming zakat and by distributing among the poor, albeit in a modern NGO setting.
  •In many states with a majority population of Muslims zakat has been distributed through an elaborate voluntary system, rather than having been accumulated in bait al mal (Islamic state treasury).
  •The totality of Islamic ethics, law, politics and economics come together in a completely modern form of caring Muslim communities.
  
• Conclusions
  •NGOs are diverse and range from the politically militant to the truly benevolent.
  •Islamic NGOs have acquired the organisational capacity and structure of modern secular NGOs
  •They claim a religious role inspired by the intimate association between religion, politics and economic welfare in puritan Islam
  
• Much more information is available here.
  

The Agenda of the Shimron Letters

We are here to watch the Islamist agenda as they work to enslave Africa. We will neither oppose nor be diverted by Muslim Nationalists unless they surrender to the Islamist Agenda.

• Information will be gathered in accordance with the following standards of reliability
• The direct words of first hand local observers.
• Interviews with first hand local observers.
• Reliable Leaders with access to local ministry or government activity.
• Web sources of all kinds to discern what jihadists, Jesus - friendly, and skilled non- christian analyst sources are saying
• We intend to frequently and consistently study sites so as to determine which are truthful and which are deceptive.
• We may provide direct quotes from people inciting or committing violence, as quoted by first hand or by reliable sources, unless we determine that they are committing deliberate deception.
• We will not knowingly assist Islamists - if your concerned about a posting please email us
• We will provide commentary if we project a possible danger, and a warning is warren ted.

Belief's

• Every living human has fallen short of God's glory, and It is not possible for humans to earn their redemption
• Therefore God offered himself, in the form of his only son Jesus - the promised messiah - who paid the penalty of our falling short.
• We accept the Pardon when we turn away from running our own lives, turning our life over to Jesus.
• He gives us this Pardon as His free gift, and no amount of good human work can pay its price.
• All good works of believers are done in gratitude for the gift.
• We Love every Muslim God ever created, and pray God will bring this truth to them

Practices

• Though this simple plan is at work everywhere on earth, we will not aid or support the combative spread of the gospel of Christ, verbal or otherwise
• The battle is the Lord's, and though we go boldly at his direction, we gently seek the voluntary redemption of all men and women
• There are Believers working in remote locations where they may be exposed to threat of physical harm.Therefore, activities that inhibit the spread of the gospel or increase the possibility of threat or danger to Believers will be shared here.
• This blog intends to become a resource to those called to spread this message, including the ministry of intercession, who petition God on behalf of people serving in dangerous areas.
• We intend that this information be taken to God, who will direct intercessors on how to pray, to help keep workers in dangerous places safe.
• The information is designed to help focus our prayers, as Christ, the Messiah, Christ the only son of God, continues to bring His kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.

contact: Shimron Issachar