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Swedish Jihadists Exposed, Daily Publishes Names

ISIS boot camp graduation
ISIS boot camp graduation

SWEDEN — Stockholm-based daily Aftonbladethas identified and mapped an extensive list of Swedish citizens who have traveled abroad to support the terror group ISIS. "The Swedes Who Wanted To Die For Terror," reads the front page of Scandinavia's most read daily.

Aftonbladet said it chose to publish the list, complete with names and photos of the individuals, because the terrorist sympathizers "despise the thought of a democratic society and because these people have been trained to kill, and may be potential terrorists — right here among us."

The investigative piece comes after two Swedish citizens were arrested Friday in the Greek city of Alexandroupolis for their suspected jihadist links.

Of the 77 people on the list, 25 are believed to be dead, 11 have returned to Sweden, and 20 are women, who Aftonbladet's analysts believe are meant to populate the Caliphate and foster the next generation's jihadists. The Swedish Security Police (SÄPO) estimates that a total of 286 people have traveled from Sweden to Syria to support ISIS.

Sweden has been roiled by rising tensions over immigration and security in recent weeks, with plans to deport thousands of failed refugee applicants. Unconfirmed reports over the weekend said that anti-immigrant groups were set to mount attacks against immigrant youths.

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Society

How Brazil's Evangelical Surge Threatens Survival Of Native Afro-Brazilian Faith

Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.

image of Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Agencia Publica
Géssica Amorim

Among a host of images of saints and Afro-Brazilian divinities known as orixás, Abel José, 42, an Umbanda priest, lights some candles, picks up his protective beads and adjusts the straw hat that sits atop his head. He is preparing to treat four people from neighboring villages who have come to his house in search of spiritual help and treatment for health ailments.

The meeting takes place discreetly, in a small room that has been built in the back of the garage of his house. Abel lives in the quilombo of Sítio Bredos, home to 135 families. The community, located in the municipality of Betânia of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is one of the municipality’s four remaining communities that have been certified as quilombos, the word used to refer to communities formed in the colonial era by enslaved Africans and/or their descendents.

In these villages there are almost no residents who still follow traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Abel, Seu Joaquim Firmo and Dona Maura Maria da Silva are the sole remaining followers of Umbanda in the communities in which they live. A wave of evangelical missionary activity has taken hold of Betânia’s quilombos ever since the first evangelical church belonging to the Assembleia de Deus group was built in the quilombo of Bredos around 20 years ago. Since then, other evangelical, pentecostal, and neo-pentecostal churches and congregations have established themselves in the area. Today there are now nine temples spread among the four communities, home to roughly 900 families.

The temples belong to the Assembleia de Deus, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the World Church of God's Power, the latter of which has over 6,000 temples spread across Brazil and was founded by the apostle and televangelist Valdemiro Santiago, who became infamous during the pandemic for trying to sell beans that he had blessed as a Covid-19 cure. Assembleia de Deus alone, who are the largest pentecostal denomination in the world, have built five churches in Betânia’s quilombos.


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