Islamic militants fleeing a three-nation offensive took revenge Thursday, February 5, by attacking churches and shooting and burning to death as many as 100 people. According to Cameroon's Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakari, approximately 800 militants from neighboring Nigeria’s Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram entered the Cameroon border town of Fotokol where, among other things, they “burned churches" and "slaughtered youth who resisted joining them to fight Cameroonian forces” and even used them as human shields.

Pictures of the carnage left behind after yesterday's jihadi raid by the Islamic State on Assyrian Christian villages along the Khabur River in north eastern Syria follow:

In the early hours of Monday, February 23, Islamic State fighters attacked several Christian villages along the Khabur River in north eastern Syria. Four Christians enrolled in the Assyrian militia were killed and one young civilian child. One Christian woman was raped by the Islamic invaders before being slaughtered. As many as 200 Christians—including women and children—were taken hostage [more recent reports put the number at 350-400]. Their families fear that they will either be sold as slaves and/or raped, or simply massacred, as many other Christian hostages of the Islamic State have been—most recently the 21 Coptic martyrs in Libya.

Several churches were also torched or damaged during the jihadi raid, including the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua.

And, perhaps worst of all, this raid “brought to light deplorable conduct on the part of other persons,” namely the West. According to Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo:

I wish to say quite clearly that we have the feeling of being abandoned into the hands of Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS]. Yesterday American bombers flew over the area several times, but without taking action. We have a hundred Assyrian families who have taken refuge in Hassakè, but they have received no assistance either from the Red Crescent or from Syrian government aid workers, perhaps because they are Christians. The UN high commission for Refugees is nowhere to be seen.

In a separate interview, the Syrian archbishop added:

With their disastrous policies mainly the French and the US, with their regional allies, have favored in fact the Daesh escalation. Now they persevere in error, commit strategic, grotesque mistakes ... instead of recognizing that their guaranteed support to jihadist groups has led us to this chaos and has destroyed Syria, making us regress 200 years.

Editor’s note: The following account was written for RaymondIbrahim.com by an American teacher in the Muslim world.

As I was writing this story, I could not stop comparing and contrasting the life of Eden, a young Christian woman from Pakistan, to the life of my daughter, a young Buddhist woman from Thailand. They are both beautiful 21 years old women who grew up dreaming about their career choices, travels, and eventual marriage. Sadly, their lives contrasted when it came to their levels of safety or the choices they would be allowed to make growing up. For example, my daughter never worried about being persecuted for her religious beliefs nor did she feel she would be forced to marry a man that was not of her choosing.

For Eden, religious persecution was a fact of life and the fear of being kidnapped and forced into a marriage with a Muslim was a daily concern of hers. Even with those worries, she still managed to live a happy life. She worked in a beauty salon in the city of Faisalabad and had a nice circle of friends who comforted her when her mother passed away in the spring of 2012.

A few months after the death of her mother, Eden was watching TV with her father (who suffered from a weak heart) when three men, unknown to both of them, entered their home and said that they were taking Eden back to her husband. They claimed that Eden married a friend of theirs three months earlier after she converted to Islam.

Eden denied these accusations and her father, after asking them why the supposed husband didn't come himself to take his supposed wife, told them to leave his home. As the men were exiting, one of them turned towards Eden's father and said, “Give us your daughter peacefully or we will come again with a marriage certificate. If you don't give her to us, we will take her by force.”

Eden and her father were now faced with their worst nightmare. Eden's father was afraid of losing his only child in such a barbaric manner, and Eden feared suffering the same fate as hundreds of Pakistani Christian women; kidnapping, conversion to Islam, and forced into a loveless marriage with a Muslim. As soon as the three men were out of sight, they went to the nearest police station to seek help against Eden's possible kidnappers. However, the police officers laughed at them and told them to convert to Islam if they wanted to receive help from law enforcement officials.

They returned home, packed their bags, and fled to the other side of the city to stay with relatives. The next day, Eden's father met with an old friend and together, they realized that the best way to save Eden would be to marry her to Luke, the friend's 28 year old son. They believed that if she was legally married, Eden would be left alone. The two fathers introduced Luke and Eden to each other and explained the situation to them. They were married the same day.

Eden's father returned home believing that his daughter was now safe. However, he received a call a week later from a man shouting, “You married your daughter to a Christian! We will kill them!”

Following that threat, the newlyweds fled to Karachi. During the next three months, Eden's father receive more threats and as a result of the stress caused by them, his weak heart failed. Eden was devastated. She lost both of her parents in the space of six months. With both parents gone and her life in danger, (as well as her husband's), she decided to seek a better life elsewhere. Luke's father sent them the necessary funds and in October 2012, they arrived in Thailand.

While their marriage was based on necessity rather than feelings, they have learned to truly love each other and are now the proud parents of a 20 month old boy. Their lives as refugees in Bangkok is difficult since they are not allowed to work and have little money. But they have faith that GOD will soon provide them with a decent home where their son will be safe from Islamic persecution.

Author’s note: The names of the individuals in this article were changed to protect their relatives who remain in Pakistan.