Afghanistan (MNN) — It’s been a month since the United States completed its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Congressional hearings reveal a division between top U.S. military leaders and President Biden concerning the withdrawal. More about that here.
Meanwhile, the Taliban is once again ruling with violence in Afghanistan. On Saturday, Taliban members hung a dead body in a city square, reportedly to “alert all criminals that they are not safe.” Last week, a senior Taliban leader promised strict punishments and executions would return.
Heart4Iran partner Mark Morris says Afghan believers need your prayer.
“There are Christians who made a very heart-wrenching choice a few weeks before the Taliban took control. These Christians said, ‘We want to register with the government. We don’t want to be known as Muslims’… and they were allowed to register,” Morris says.
“The Taliban has all that (information). Those people are at great risk.”
Taliban fighters patrol Kabul, August 2021.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Through partners on the ground, Heart4Iran is helping Afghan Christians. A new $15,000 matching grant provides virtual Church access, trauma counseling, Bibles, and more.
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“There’s chaos [and] fear. There are a lot of door-to-door searches. We have heard reports about followers of Jesus who have been martyred for their faith,” Morris says.
“For the most part, people are uncertain [about] what the future holds.”
Plenty of rumors surround the status of Afghan Christians, but verifiable reports surface, too. Pray the Lord will strengthen and sustain His followers in Afghanistan.
“We’ve heard rumors of a whole church being martyred, and we know that’s not true. But we don’t want to belittle any story that we hear; we want to investigate it,” Morris says.
“We know specific [Afghan Christians] who have called. One sister in the Lord called and said, ‘the Taliban took my husband, and they decapitated him because of his faith.’ Another brother shares, ‘the Taliban has burned my Bibles.’ Those are the things that we can verify.”
See our complete coverage of the Afghanistan crisis here.
In the header image, U.S. Air Force loadmasters and pilots assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron load passengers aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), Afghanistan, Aug. 24, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen)