This comes buried in a BBC article about the latest military developments in Syria:
Islamist rebels in Aleppo [in rebel-controlled Syria]…executed a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents as punishment for what they regarded as a blasphemous comment. …Mohammed Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized by the rebels, who allegedly overheard the teenager tell someone: “Even if the Prophet Muhammad comes down [from heaven], I will not become a believer.”
Before executing the boy, one of the rebels reportedly told onlookers: “Disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the Prophet is polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this.”
I’ve also heard, in my occasional following of the Syrian news, that churches have been “deliberately desecrated” in the battle zones by some of these Rebels. Why target churches? Assad and his group are not Christians. It just reminds me again that the more I know about Syria, the less I really know.
A scene from Homs, Syria, one year ago [The Atlantic]
Over two million Christians in Syria–with a lot of money
I wonder how many of those two million, and how much of that money, will be left by 2015, or whenever the war ends, if it ever ends.