TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A Tulsa minister and his team came face-to-face with gun-wielding militants on a recent trip to the Middle East to help the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq set up a safe haven for Christians and other minorities.
Terry Law, founder of Tulsa-based World Compassion, said about 80 to 100 shots were fired into the air during the encounter and that three members of the Kurdish military escort protecting him and his team were beaten and hospitalized.
Law’s son, Jason Law, president of World Compassion, also was on the trip.
The Tulsa World reports that the incident happened Aug. 21 when the team of 13 U.S., Canadian and British ministers tried to cross a border from Kurdistan into an area called the Nineveh Plains, a region that is home to Christians, Terry Law said.
Kurdistan is a semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq. Most Kurds are Muslims of Persian, not Arab, descent.
Law said the militants, later identified by Kurdish officials as members of an Iranian militia, surrounded their convoy of six vehicles, brandishing weapons and beating on the cars.
The convoy turned around to head back to Erbil, the Kurdistan capital, but was again blocked by militants who were shouting at them and shooting into the air.
The militants dispersed and let them pass after a man in military attire showed up and ordered them to stand down, Law said.
“It was a very long hour,” he said, adding that it was one of the most dangerous encounters he has had in nearly 50 years of overseas ministry.
Law said the team was invited to Kurdistan by Karim Sinjari, the minister of the interior and minister of defense of the Kurdistan Regional Government, on the eve of an election in which the people of Kurdistan will vote on whether to become independent of Iraq.
The region already has its own military and government.
He said his team was asked to connect with the Christian population in Kurdistan to assess their needs and to work with the government to develop a constitution that will guarantee freedom of religion for all minorities and to provide a safe haven for Christians in the Middle East.
The Kurdish referendum for independence is scheduled for Sept. 25.
The United States has long supported a unified Iraq, the so-called “One Iraq” policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has asked the Kurds to postpone the vote for independence over concerns that the election could interfere with the fight against the ISIS terrorist group and could anger Turkey and other neighboring nations.
Kurdish leaders have said the election will go on as planned.
Law said the Rev. Mike Hayes, who is on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board, was on the trip but not at the border incident.
He said Hayes, a Dallas pastor, will go back to the board with the team’s recommendation that the United States abandon its One Iraq policy and support independence for Kurdistan. If the board adopts the proposal, it will recommend that to Trump.
Law said the Christian population of Iraq was 1.6 million in 2003 and is now under 300,000.
If the trend continues, he said, Christianity will disappear from the Middle East, where it began.
“We want to create a safe haven for Christians in the Middle East,” he said. “It’s never been done before.”
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Information from: Tulsa World, https://www.tulsaworld.com
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