It happens to be one of the rare cities in the Middle East where the Christians out number the resident Moslem population: or used to.
Isis over-ran the Christian enclave North East of Damascus in 2015 and it was not until last week that the place was liberated.
This was the result of a joint Syrian/Russian action that drove out the thugs after three days of fighting.
You might have thought that the 18,000 population would be in the streets rejoicing, but they were not and the reason was simple: there was nobody left in the city.
Recent photographs reveal a ghost town bereft of its civilian population. The magnificent twelve hundred year old church is a burned out wreck; the grave yard is desecrated, Bibles have been reduced to ashes, sacred texts obliterated all evidence that there was once a Christian community, gone.
Welcome to the world of radical Islam.
Welcome back the rule of Bashar Assad who encouraged diversity of faiths to flourish under his regime.
He is the man who all the Western powers demand to resign. Yet, paradoxically, he is the leader who has protected the Christian minorities from the very beginning of his rule.
Please, please, please for once get it right. If we are the Christian West then stand with our Christian brothers and sisters and if Assad is the man who is protecting them, stand behind him and let God take care of the details.
Jubilate.
Ian
