Turkish forces launched a bombing campaign across northeastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting civilian areas and killing Syriac Christians. 

The bombing campaign, launched less than 48 hours after a phone call between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appeared to target Christian and Kurdish enclaves in the cities of Qameshli, Kobani, and others. Shelling also hit the border town of Nusaybin, in Turkey, where the oldest church in a region once dominated by the earliest Christians is located.

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In the city’s Christian Quarter, known as Bashiria, shelling hit the shop and nearby home of Fadi Sabri Hasbouno. Initial reports had claimed Hasbouno, his wife, and two children were killed. WORLD received photos of the family at approximately 9 p.m. Syria time. One photo showed a woman, believed to be Hasbouno’s wife, strapped to a gurney, her arm outstretched and bloodied, a cross tattoo typical of Eastern Christians visible above an IV running from her arm. Residents later confirmed members of the whole family suffered injuries, and Hasbouno was alert while his wife underwent surgery. His shop burned and half of his house was damaged, he said.

Two children were killed and four injured between the ages of 2 and 6 years old, according to the Rojava Information Center. It said at least one hospital had been bombarded. In Qameshli, a bomb struck Mar Gorgios Assyrian Church.

Turkish airstrikes targeting residential areas violated pledges from both Erdogan and Trump, and defied UN calls to spare civilians. They caused “a huge panic among people of the region,” said Mustafa Bali, chief spokesman of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Old people on foot, people in wheelchairs, and shepherds surrounded by their flocks all fled the Kurdish city of Ras al-Ain, reported Joan Garcia, a researcher with the Rojava Information Center. Images of residents fleeing Qameshli in long lines of cars were reminiscent of the 2014 exodus of Christians during the ISIS invasion of Iraq—only this time the invader is a NATO member given a go-ahead to attack by a U.S. president.

For weeks Turkey’s Erdogan threatened an offensive at Syria’s northeastern border, where U.S. Special Forces assisted the Kurdish-led SDF in defeating ISIS. Erdogan has wanted to establish a safe zone for returning Syrian refugees in an area where approximately 100,000 Christians still live. Following a phone call between Trump and the Turkish president on Sunday, a White House press statement announced, “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation in Northern Syria” and U.S. forces “will no longer be in the immediate area.”

Within hours U.S. military personnel stationed in the border towns of Tal Abiad and Ras al-Ain withdrew from their positions. Turkish troops soon moved into those areas. On Monday Turkish media published photos showing members of the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army—a collection of Syrian and other jihadist mercenaries—preparing to fight Kurds and non-Muslims. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu issued a statement saying his country would “clear the region from terrorists.”

(Excerpt from World Magazine. Article by Mindy Belz.)

We need to rally in prayer for the Christians and other peace-loving people of Northeast Syria — including the Kurds, Yezidis, and others. Let us pray for their safety, security, and freedom. Let us also pray they would be guarded from those who would seek to conquer them and take all those things away. As Psalm 33 tells us, let us look to the Lord alone for their protection.

Proverbs 21:1 tells us: “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he guides it wherever he pleases.” Let us also pray that the Lord gives President Trump wisdom to make the right decisions.

(Excerpt from FRC’s Washington Update.)