Did A Christian Just Blow Himself Up for Jesus?
Video: Robert Spencer on OAN on the Liverpool ‘Christian’ jihad suicide bombing.
My latest in PJ Media:
On Sunday morning in Britain, just as the nation was preparing to observe a moment of silence for Remembrance Day, a taxicab pulled up in front of Liverpool Women’s Hospital and exploded into flames. Moments later, the cab driver, David Perry, who had run out of the car, explained that he had noticed that his passenger, who turned out to be an Iraqi migrant named Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen, was wearing an explosive belt, so he locked the cab, whereupon Swealmeen exploded his bomb inside it.
This would be an unfortunately standard story of jihad terrorism were it not for a strange detail. Swealmeen converted to Christianity in 2017, in the same cathedral he had apparently planned to attack: he initially asked Perry to drive him to the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool, but traffic was heavy, and so he opted to go to Liverpool Women’s Hospital instead.
Islamic apologists have made much of Swealmeen’s conversion to Christianity, as it apparently validates their claim that terrorists are not prompted to commit acts of violence by religious teachings, but by poverty or desperation or psychological problems or some combination of the three. That certainly seems to be true in Swealmeen’s case, at least at first glance, since he seems to have renounced Islam and its promise of paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (Qur’an 9:111) back in 2017.
Malcolm Hitchott, who with his wife Elizabeth hosted Swealmeen in their home for eight months when he first arrived in Britain, recounted: “He first came to the cathedral in August 2015 and wanted to convert to Christianity. He took an Alpha Course, which explains the Christian faith, and completed it in November of that year. That enabled him to come to an informed decision and he changed from Islam to Christianity and was confirmed as a Christian just before he came to live with us. He was destitute at that time and we took him in.” Elizabeth recalled that he was a wonderful fellow: “We just loved him, he was a lovely guy.” Obviously.
His conversion, however, may not have been sincere. Christian Today reported back in January 2017 that in Germany, “migrants increase their chances of winning asylum in Germany if they are able to prove that they would face persecution if sent home to a Muslim country….They can do this by showing proof that they are Christian or have converted to Christianity.” Dr. Gottfried Martens of Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin noted that “some Muslims come to his church and express interest in Christianity just to improve their chances of getting their asylum request approved.”
Asylum seekers in Britain have also shown that they know how to game the system: they claim to be Christian or gay and that they would therefore face persecution back home if their asylum claim was denied. But as soon as their application is approved, they return to Islam and/or heterosexuality.
There is more. Read the rest here.
RELATED VIDEO: The Forgotten Suicide Bomber.
.
RELATED ARTICLES:
UK: Concerns Muslim migrants faking conversions at Liverpool Cathedral to help asylum claims
EU agrees to new sanctions on Belarus as Muslim migrant border crisis with Poland deepens
Poland demands NATO step in to deal with Muslim migrant crisis on border with Belarus
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.