Over the weekend I was thinking about this news item that I saw while I was reading through the news. It caught my attention because there was $100,000.00 ransom on the head of this Iraqi Christian and that's just not something that I see every day - even doing blogging about Christian persecution.
Unfortunately, today The Assyrian International News Agency has reported that this Christian construction worker was killed and mutilated on today - Monday. Here's a snip:
KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) -- Iraqi insurgents killed and mutilated a Christian construction worker whom they had kidnapped over the weekend and demanded $100,000 in ransom for, police and medical officials said on Monday.
Ashur Issa Yaqub, a 29-year-old Chaldean Christian, had been snatched on Saturday in the oil-rich ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk, and is survived by his wife and three children.
"A police patrol found the body of the young Christian man, his head was almost completely cut off," said Kirkuk provincial police chief Major General Jamal Taher Bakr, adding that he believed Al-Qaeda insurgents were behind the gruesome killing.
Provincial health chief Sadiq Omar Rasul confirmed the details, and added that the body "carried traces of torture and the bites of dogs".
A local police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Yaqub had been found with his head "almost cut off fully, his legs and arms tied together, and his clothes covered in blood."
The full article is here.
Please keep his family in your prayers and all the other Iraqi Christians. Unfortunately, this is something that appears to be increasing. We need to pray against it.