US Sells $11bn Worth of Arms to Qatar

Or, She May not be Cheap, but She Sure is Easy (see post immediately below)

Washington and Doha have signed the largest arms deal of the year, preparing to enhance Qatar’s military capabilities with $11 billion-worth of Apache assault helicopters, PAC-2 missile defense complexes and Javelin man-portable anti-tank missiles.

The deal has been signed on Monday in Pentagon by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Qatari Defense Minister Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah. Altogether Qatar is buying 10 batteries of Patriot missile defense systems and 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles manufactured by US defense industry giants Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and 24 Apache helicopters made by Boeing, an anonymous US official told the AFP.

The Patriot complexes with 247 PAC-3 missiles cost over $7 billion, the Apache helicopters and related gear are worth over $3 billion, and the Javelin anti-tank missiles cost additional $100 million.

“Today's signing ceremony underscores the strong partnership between the United States and Qatar in the area of security and defense and will help improve our bilateral cooperation across a range of military operations,” said in a statement Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

Qatar is the key US ally in the Persian Gulf region and home to the US Al-Udeid Air Base, with the headquarters of US Central Command (USCC) and US Air Force Central Command (USAFCC) stationed there. Al-Udeid - what a name, especially for guys named Al.

Patriot Advanced Capability-2 anti-missile launcher

Last December US and Qatar signed a 10-year Defense Cooperation Agreement ensuring presence of American troops at the military installations in the area, including the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, and closer interaction between American and Qatari armed forces. The agreement was signed in Qatar by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Qatari Defense Minister Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah.

“This is a critically important relationship in the region,” Kirby said. “And the secretary is pleased to be able to continue to make it stronger.”

Pentagon claims that new order from Qatar will create 54,000 jobs in the US.

A U.S. soldier explains the Javelin anti-tank missle

It has been a priority for the US in recent years to improve the air defenses of American allies in the Persian Gulf, remaining “the defense provider of choice” for Qatar and other Gulf States, the same anonymous official informed the AFP.

Qatar is investing in missile defense systems because of the missile arsenal of Iran across the Persian Gulf, the official said. Tehran possesses multiple missiles capable of reaching Qatar in case of a regional conflict.

Qatari authorities have been acting as intermediary when it comes to organizing negotiations between the Taliban in Afghanistan, and American and Afghan governments after a Taliban office opened in Qatar last summer ahead of renewed talks.

Apache Assault Helicopter

In January this year, another set of secret negotiations between the Karzai government and Taliban took place in the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar also contributed to the US-Taliban deal that ended in release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on May 31 this year. Bergdahl, who spent five years as a Taliban POW, was delivered to Qatar in exchange for the release five Taliban commanders imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay US detention facility in Cuba.

There have been reports that Qatar has been actively participating in a number of conflicts in recent years, such as ousting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and the ongoing civil war in Syria.

Don't forget their funding of Hamas in their relentless bombing of Israel (see post below). Is Qatar a friend or foe? The US administration obviously considers it a friend even though it is helping facilitate a war with an American ally. What's up with that?

The Ugly Complexities of Political Prostitution

Or, How Qatar learned to love the bomb.

The oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar’s influence has been widely felt during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. 

While traditionally closely aligned with Iran, Hamas has pivoted to Sunni powers like Qatar and Turkey in recent years for economic and political support. Keen to expand its regional and international influence, Qatar’s ties to the Palestinian terrorist group have drawn increasing criticism from Israel, the United States, and even fellow Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who accuse Qatar of undermining regional stability by supporting Hamas. 

“Qatar is a very strange place. They rely on the U.S. for protection and invest heavily in the U.S.,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), noting that the U.S. has its largest Mideast airbase—Al-Udeid Air Base—in Qatar.

Al-Udeid US Air Base—in Qatar

“[But] at the same time, just miles away from [the airbase], you can find the head of Hamas (Khaled Mashal), and there was even a Taliban embassy there for a while too. All of these things make for a foreign-policy anomaly,” Schanzer told JNS.org. Anomally? More like schizophrenia!

With the war raging in Gaza, Israeli leaders have begun to single out Qatar for its support of Hamas. During a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 23, now-former Israeli President Shimon Peres slammed Qatar for becoming “the world’s largest funder of terror.”

“Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians. Their funding of terror the must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy,” Peres said.

Qatar reportedly pledged more than $400 million to Hamas in October 2012 during a visit to Gaza by Qatar’s ruling emir at the time, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry greets U.S. Ambassador to Qatar Susan Ziadeh
upon his arrival in Doha, Qatar, on June 22, 2014

Qatar has also given refuge to Hamas chief Mashaal, who fled to Qatar’s capital of Doha after Hamas’s offices in Damascus were shut down in 2012 as a result of the terror group’s criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s conduct in the Syrian civil war.

More recently, the U.S. blocked the transfer of Qatari funds that were slated to pay the salaries of civil servants hired by Hamas in Gaza, the Times of Israel reported.

According to a diplomatic source in Qatar, the Gulf state in June attempted to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to an Arab bank for the salaries of 44,000 Hamas civil servants who were rendered jobless due to the recent Palestinian unity deal between Hamas and Fatah.

The attempted transfer of funds by Qatar to pay Hamas employees highlighted the dire economic situation Hamas has found itself in over the last year due to Egypt destroying Hamas’s smuggling tunnels, which the terror group relied on for tax revenue.

Egypt’s crackdown on Hamas has been part of a larger effort by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to target the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent organization.

But El-Sisi is not alone in his contempt for the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia also declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization this March. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all recalled their ambassadors to Qatar over its support for the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Egypt also recently sentenced three journalists from the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera satellite news network to seven to 10 years in prison for “spreading false news and conspiring” with the Muslim Brotherhood.  

Al Jazeera broadcast center

“Qatar’s vocal foreign policy developed with Al Jazeera. Qatar had a point of view and, after 1995 and the launch of Al Jazeera, began increasingly and gradually to express it,” Joseph LeBaron, the U.S. Ambassador to Qatar from 2008-2011, told JNS.org.

LeBaron explained that Qatar, like most Arab countries, does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist group. Just because they want to obliterate every living Jew doesn't make them terrorists, just Muslims.

“In terms of Hamas, Qatar’s policy of dialogue can lead to direct support, whether political and diplomatic, economic, or humanitarian,” he said. “But Qatar’s policy also is not to support terror groups. Qatar would not support Hamas if it believed Hamas was a terror group.”

Nevertheless, Qatar’s unyielding support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas has created a deep rift in the Arab world. 

Egypt, which has traditionally played a role as a mediator for the Israelis and Palestinians, accused Qatar and Turkey of undermining its efforts to broker a cease-fire to the current conflict in Gaza.

In a statement on July 17, shortly after Egypt’s initial cease-fire proposal was rejected by Hamas, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said that Palestinian blood was on Hamas’s hands.

“Had Hamas accepted the Egyptian initiative, at least 40 Palestinian souls would have been saved,” said Shukri, the Egyptian state-run news outlet MENA reported. Saved? Not likely, but maybe still alive.

The Arab power struggle has continued, with Qatar reportedly offering its own cease-fire plan that excluded Egypt from the negotiating process, before the Israeli ground operation began on July 17.

Yet regional divisions appeared to thaw a bit on July 22, when Qatari Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to discuss cease-fire efforts.

“There are strained relations, obviously, but so far that tension has been restricted largely to the diplomatic sphere. Because it has, I am optimistic that the Arab states will gradually find a way to accommodate one another’s differing foreign policy approaches toward regional issues,” former U.S. ambassador LeBaron told JNS.org.

FDD’s Schanzer blamed the growing Arab rift, which is largely between U.S. allies in the Middle East, on the lack of strong U.S. leadership in the region.

“The White House right now is doing its best to extricate itself from the Middle East,” he said.

“We are setting a low bar for our allies; we are not demanding a certain level of responsibility [such as demanding that countries not support terrorist groups like Hamas]. The fact that we allow this is troubling,” added Schanzer.

Some U.S. legislators, however, have sought to pressure Qatar over its Hamas ties.

Last year, two-dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives, spearheaded by Reps. Peter Roskam (R-IL) and John Barrow (D-GA), sent a letter to Qatari Ambassador to the U.S. Mohamed Bin Abdulla Al-Rumaihi, urging the country to end its support of Hamas.

“As Israel works to achieve a cease-fire and sustainable quiet, it doesn’t help that others in the region, such as Qatar and Iran, are undermining the peace process by helping Hamas fire thousands of rockets at innocent civilians,” Barrow told JNS.org.

LeBaron said he believes the U.S. will continue to engage with Qatar.

“The United States and Qatar have long recognized that they will not always agree, far from it, but since 2010 this realization has not led either side to isolate the other. You don't kick the prostitute out of bed if you want her to come back the next night. (Not that I would actually know that from experience). I expect this policy of engagement to continue,” he said.

Nevertheless, as Qatar seeks to expand its role as not only a major regional player, but also as an international one, the country’s fundamental values will continue to be scrutinized. In particular, Qatar’s designation as the host of the 2022 World Cup has drawn significant backlash.

“[The Qataris] are supporting a very violent non-state actor (Hamas),” Schanzer said. “A lot of people ignore Qatar’s ideological leanings. But at the end of the day, even though they are nominally allied with the United States, they are Islamist at their core.”

"While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them..." Daniel 7:8

ISIS is Using an All-Women Brigade to Enforce Sharia Law in Syria

From Newsweek

"Jihad is not a man-only duty. Women must do their part as well," Abu Ahmad, a spokesman for ISIS in Syria told Syria Deeply.

In the city of Raqqa, where last week ISIS ambushed and killed more than 50 Syrian soldiers, the Sunni militant group has established an all-female unit tasked with policing other women under ISIS’s rigid interpretation of Sharia law.

"[T]he brigade raided the city's Hamida Taher Girls School and arrested 10 students, two teachers and a secretary on the grounds that some of them were wearing veils that were too thin. Others were accused of wearing hair clips under the veil, pinning them in a way that showed too much of their faces," activist Abu al-Hamza told Syria Deeply.

"The women who join the brigade are either women of Raqqa who wanted to take part in ISIS's activities there, or, often, the wives of mujahedeen who have come to fight from other parts of Syria or the region," Syria Deeply reported.

Women policing other women is a frequent topic of discussion in feminist scholarship, though never before has the phenomenon been taken to this extreme conclusion.

The official reason given for the brigade’s existence is to "raise awareness among women, and arrest and punish women who do not follow the religion correctly," Abu Ahmad said. However, the true purpose of the brigade is to detect anti-ISIS fighters attempting to infiltrate Raqqa dressed as women, Syrian media outlet Alalam reported.

The creation of all-female "morality police" units might be "indicative of a bigger, slow-moving shift toward allowing women 'more operative' roles in the jihadi movement," Thomas Hegghammer, the director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, told The Atlantic. "There is a process of female emancipation taking place in the jihadi movement, albeit a very limited (and morbid) one," he said.

But the tactic of "putting women out front as a sign that their policies are 'broadly' accepted among the community" is nothing new, Isobel Coleman, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East, told Newsweek via email. "Remember the 'chicks with sticks' (so dubbed by the Pakistani press) - the all-women groups that terrorized citizens on the streets of Islamabad outside the Red Mosque in 2007?"

Still, being part of ISIS’s morality police might beat a lot of other options for Syrian women. According to Alalam, ISIS pays its female militants "a monthly salary worth 25 thousand SYP (Syrian pounds)." The country’s median wage since the crisis there began has dropped to 12 thousand SYP, Beirut-based news source Al-Akhbar said.

Meriam, A Symbol of Feminism Come Full-Circle?

A beautifully written and thought provoking perspective on the accomplishments of Meriam Ibrahim.

LONDON, England (Catholic Online) - The great news of Meriam Ibrahim's arrival in Italy filled me with so much joy and elation. The images of this graceful and beautiful African woman, babe in hand, stepping out of the plane was a sight to behold especially after her unspeakable pain and suffering in the Sudanese prison.

So I thought I should, in a very simple letter, write down my reflections and thoughts of gratitude for this resilient daughter of Africa whose freedom is being celebrated by the entire world today.

On behalf of all African women, I thank you Meriam Ibrahim, for showing the world the indomitable courage that is at the core of authentic femininity. I say this because your pain and persecution were tied so firmly to your femininity. And so your triumph was a most powerful witness to life, to motherhood, to marriage, to love and to faith.

Meriam and Maya being blessed
by Pope Francis

You are indeed a true picture of faith and virtue, a true symbol of strength and resilience. You are, in my humble opinion, a real woman of substance, an African woman of substance and your story fills my heart with courage and audacity in my own vocation to defend our African culture of life,marriage, motherhood, faith and family, no matter how difficult, no matter how shameful and no matter how painful for me.

For under intense persecution, you refused to deny your Christian faith. Under the threat of the extremists, you stood as a witness and a martyr.

Under the pain of incarceration, you would not deny your husband or renounce your marriage.

Under the heavy shackles of prison you still had the strength and defiance to give life, to give birth.

Under the certainty of a death sentence you had the determination to nurse your precious little baby.

By your powerful example, the world has come to witness the resilience of a young African woman who in the worst conditions bore heroic witness to the virtues of faith, marriage, and motherhood.

Your unspeakable struggles in the last few months have been a most radiant ray of light that has pierced through the darkest clouds to contradict a modern world that is telling us that faith means nothing, that religious freedom is not all that important, that marriage is whatever we want it to be, that motherhood should be a choice we make under the most conducive situations, that our babies should only be born at the most convenient of times.

You, my African sister, have become a lightning rod to the radical feminists of our times who repudiate and denigrate every virtue that you epitomize .

Within your body, you have borne the marks and scars of a true Christian, a wife, a mother and a martyr, and in this way you have shown us what it means to be an empowered and liberated woman, and I'm glad to say it is certainly not what the western radicals and ideologues are telling us.

They try to tell us that for African women to be empowered, they need to be "sexually liberated", selfish, individualistic and fiercely autonomous, but you Meriam, by your own example, have taught us that the liberated African woman is the woman who is free to live and practice her faith, love her husband , and protect her children (born and unborn). A liberated woman is a woman of faith and family. This is the truth that must be spoken throughout Africa.

Today, the world watched you as you breathed the fresh air of freedom and as you made your first stop, not at the Whitehouse, but rather at the House of St Martha (Casa Santa Marta) which is also the house of the Holy Father Pope Francis. Instead of the presidential handshake that many others would have craved first, you chose the papal handshake. And instead of the political reception you chose the apostolic benediction for you and your family. You chose the Pope over the POTUS!

You are a woman of great wisdom and strength and indeed Africa raises, praises and celebrates you.

We rejoice with you and for you.

We rejoice that you are free at last.

And out of our rejoicing, I pray that more women (from our Africa and from every corner of the world) will reflect deeply on your experience so as to emulate you.
I pray for women of faith to rise up and bear courageous witness even to the point of martyrdom.

I pray for women who are pregnant to choose life for their babies at all cost.

I pray for women who are wives and mothers to stay true to their vows and vocations.

I pray that beyond our global rejoicing, we would be adorned with even a portion of the heroic virtue of Meriam Ibrahim's authentic feminism, purified and forged in the fiery crucible of religious persecution.
-----

Obianuju Ekeocha is an African woman, living and working in the United Kingdom as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist. She is also the founder of Culture of Life Africa, an initiative dedicated to the promotion of a Culture of Life in Africa  through the dissemination of good information, sensitization and education. She has written several articles including the "Open Letter to Melinda Gates"  and "Africa in the redefined world (An Open Letter to President Obama)" Her passion and privilege is to continue to work in defense of the sanctity and dignity of life within Culture.

Gay Lobby Challenges Gay Conversion Therapy in Chinese Court

Gay rights activists in China are preparing for what they say could be a legal milestone in their fight to stop homosexuality being treated as an illness.

Later this month, a Chinese court will hear the first case of its kind brought against a clinic that offers so-called "gay conversion therapy".

A long campaign in Europe and America has been successful in shifting the medical consensus against such treatment, and now campaigners want Chinese doctors to follow suit.

In an office block in the eastern city of Nanjing, down a gloomy corridor, I find the Nanjing Urban Psychiatric Consultancy Centre.

It's a small office with a sparsely-furnished treatment room upstairs, from which - seemingly prompted by our arrival - a young male patient hurriedly leaves.

Dr Zhou claims to have successfully
"cured" 70% of his gay patients

China declassified homosexuality as a mental illness well over a decade ago, but clinics like this one are still easy to find.

Dr Zhou Zhengyou shows me some of the books he's written on the subject over the course of his career.

One of them is a guide for parents who suspect their son or daughter might be gay.

The overriding message appears to be that it is their own parenting methods that are somehow to "blame".

Dr Zhou now claims to cure up to 70% of his gay patients, although he says it is a long and difficult process.

And, his critics point out, at $120 (£70) a session - a lot of money on an average Chinese wage - long and difficult can mean lucrative.

Dr Zhou significantly weakens his own case by charging what appears to be exorbitant fees.

Dr Zhou tells me that today he uses counselling alone and does not treat his patients with so-called aversion-therapy offered elsewhere in China. But he is happy to describe how it works.

"One common method is electric shock. When the patient has a gay thought, we electrocute them or inject them with drugs that make them sick," he said.

Gay pride parades have taken
 place in Chinese cities,
including neighbouring Hong Kong

China's gay community has begun to fight back. They've organised a number of protests - small in number but nonetheless brave in China.

Video footage of one demonstration shows activists holding up a protest banner at a Beijing medical conference. "Being gay is not an illness," it reads.

The delegates do not seem convinced. "We cannot support homosexuality," a doctor said. "Although we try to understand it," his colleague adds.

In addition to such direct action, the campaigners have been given another avenue to pursue.

Xiang Xiaohan

In March, activist Xiang Xiaohan challenged a government decision not to register his gay rights organisation.

For the first time, China has allowed them to challenge gay conversion therapy in the courts.

"I had electric shock therapy only once," the man bringing the case, who calls himself Xiao Zhen, told the BBC. "Imagine those who've had it many times."

He put himself through the treatment in order to gather the evidence and he's now hoping that a successful court ruling in his favour will effectively ban the practice.

It's a battle that has been fought elsewhere, of course.

Government plans to introduce "gay conversion" therapy in Hong Kong drew outrage in 2011.

Aversion therapy has been the target of campaigners in Europe and America for decades and today, the notion of the gay conversion has not completely gone away.

Gay activists in Hong Kong protest against "gay conversion" therapy, June, 2011

But the modern medical consensus in the West is that there's no good evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Have there actually been any trials? Any studies?

Some people suggest that attitudes in China have been slower to evolve because of the one-child-policy as well as heavy Confucian pressure on young people to get married and produce a family heir.

Attitudes in China, though, are changing fast - that Shanghai now holds an annual gay pride event is proof of that. It includes gay film screenings, discussion groups and a fun-run.

Being China, participants are not allowed to march.

Now the court case, it's hoped, will be another step forward, sending a message that the enduring medical prejudice needs to stop.

So the question is, where does homosexuality come from? Is it natural? Is it normal? Is it reversible?

How The Italians Got Meriam Out of Sudan

Meriam Ibrahim had come to expect the unexpected.

First she was thrown into prison on charges of apostasy - renouncing your faith - which many saw as an attempt by distant family to get hold of her business interests. Then on May 15 she was sentenced to hang for the crime of abandoning Islam - even though she maintained she had never been a Muslim in the first place.

Meriam and Maya

She was released by Sudan’s supreme court on June 23, yet when she tried to leave the country three days later, she was detained once more - accused of forging her travel documents.

But the events of the past 24 hours must surely have shocked even her.

Ms Ibrahim, 27, was told late on Wednesday night that she was leaving Sudan - but had no idea where she was going.

“She had very little time,” said Elshareef Ali Mohammed, her lawyer, who has been trying to secure Ms Ibrahim’s freedom since she was arrested in December.

“She wanted to tell people she was leaving, but there was not time - and she didn’t even know where she was going.”

And by Thursday, having never left Sudan before, she found herself in Rome, greeted by Pope Francis in the Vatican.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she told Antonella Napoli, head of Italians for Darfur, according to La Repubblica. “I realised the greatest dream of my life - to meet the Pope.”

Mr Elshareef told The Telegraph that Ms Ibrahim would remain in Rome for several days to recuperate with her family - her husband Daniel Wani, 20-month-old son Martin, and daughter Maya, born in a Khartoum prison.

The family were expected to visit the Colosseum on Friday, according to Corriere Della Sera, before flying in the next few days to the United States - where Mr Wani has his home, in New Hampshire.

“The US government is providing consular assistance to the family but we have no other information at this time,” a spokesman for the American embassy told The Telegraph.

For Ms Ibrahim’s supporters back in Sudan, the moment she finally left the country was one of jubilation.

“Nobody from the government knew until the plane had taken off - except the minister of foreign affairs. And I expect he told the president,” said Mr Elshareef.

“Last week a group made a threat to attack the US embassy, where they had been living, so we couldn’t take any chances.”

Unbeknown to Ms Ibrahim and her family - who had been sheltering in the American embassy since they were detained while trying to leave the country in June - the past few months had seen an intense round of diplomatic wrangling.

The American authorities were trying to secure permission for the family to travel to the US - but were encountering resistance from President Omar al-Bashir’s authoritarian regime.

“The Sudanese government appears to be trying to get something out of the US in order to release her,” said Tina Ramirez at the time, executive director of Hardwired - an American organisation which has been campaigning for her release. Of course they were. It appears almost nothing happens in Africa without money changing hands.

South Sudan offered to mediate, because Mr Wani was born in the South, but their efforts were rebuffed by Khartoum. The Italians, as current holders of the rotating EU presidency, and with the moral authority of the Pope, then stepped in to try and secure her release.

“It was a political deal, which we started discussing a long time ago,” explained Mr Elshareef.

“The Sudanese government thought that they have a good relationship with Italy, so they would let her go.”

A plane was sent from Rome, with the deputy foreign minister, Lapo Pistelli, to bring the family to Italy.

“It’s a human rights issue,” a spokesman for the Italian foreign ministry told The Telegraph. “We genuinely wanted to help.”

Mr Pistelli said: “We didn’t tell her anything until the last minute because we didn’t want to run the risk of disappointing her if something had gone wrong.”

He said Italy had been in constant contact with the Sudanese over the case, through their ambassador in Khartoum, Armando Barucco, who said Italy’s efforts were “appreciated by the Americans”.

The Sudanese called the Italians to say there was a “diplomatic window” and they were prepared to hand over her passport, so that she could travel.

“I informed the prime minister and foreign minister and it was decided that we should leave for Khartoum immediately,” said Mr Pistelli.

“We neither paid [the Sudanese] nor promised them anything. We know how to engage in politics without opening up the wallet.” Maybe you could share that with Africa.

Mr Pistelli posted a photograph of the family on board the plane on his Facebook page - with the caption: “Mission accomplished”.

Mr Elshareef said: “They were so very happy when they knew they would finally be leaving Sudan. It has been incredibly difficult for them all.

“We didn’t dare believe it was actually going to happen until the plane took off. Then we were all celebrating.”

The charges against Ms Ibrahim have not been dropped however, he said.

The Supreme Court is still weighing an appeal against her acquittal for apostasy, after her brother (from Hell) challenged the quashing of the case.

And the charges of forging her documents also stood, pending full investigation.

The couple’s lawyers were hopeful that all charges would be abandoned, however, as the family was in any case unlikely to risk returning to Sudan.

“I’ve always had my faith - and my love for my husband, a gift from God,” said Ms Ibrahim, according to La Repubblica. “When I was asked to renounce my Christian faith, I knew what I was risking [in refusing to do so]. But I didn’t want to renounce it. God bless you!

“With my family, I will start a new life. We are going to move to New Hampshire, where my brother-in-law Gabriel lives. He will help us. We’ll all be together, like a proper family.

“Thank you Italy. Thanks to God, we are all well.” Amen! And thank you to those who prayed for Meriam and her family through this ordeal.

Meriam is Free and in Italy

Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag flew to Rome with her family today after more than a month in the US embassy in Khartoum.

There was global condemnation when she was sentenced to hang for apostasy by a Sudanese court.

Mrs Ibrahim's father is Muslim so according to Sudan's version of Islamic law she is also Muslim and cannot convert.

She was raised by her Christian mother and says she has never been Muslim.

Welcoming her at the airport, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said: "Today is a day of celebration."

Mrs Ibrahim met Pope Francis at his Santa Marta residence at the Vatican soon after her arrival.

Meriam, Maya and Pope Francis

"The Pope thanked her for her witness to faith," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi was quoted as saying.

The meeting, which lasted around half an hour, was intended to show "closeness and solidarity for all those who suffer for their faith," he added.

The BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome says there was no prior indication of Italy's involvement in the case. That's simply not true, I have mentioned it twice myself so there must have been. In fact, this from the Italian government: 

Mariam Yehya Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman sentenced to death in Sudan for apostasy but subsequently pardoned, arrived in Rome on Thursday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

Ibrahim “will remain in Italy for a short time and then will travel on to the United States,” the ministry said. …

[Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Lapo] Pistelli said Italy had become involved in the case because, as a Catholic country, it was very moved by Ibrahim’s story and wanted to help.

Italy has good relations with Khartoum and offered to help the U.S. Embassy there to speed up the process of getting U.S. passports for Ibrahim and her family to leave the country, the minister said.

Pistelli said he had traveled to Sudan two weeks ago to start the process but it was not finalized until Wednesday night.

He posted an image to his Facebook page of himself with Ibrahim and the two infants, apparently taken on board the plane shortly before their arrival in Rome. “Mission accomplished,” he wrote.

Lapo Pistelli, Italy's vice-minister for foreign affairs, accompanied her on the flight from Khartoum and posted a photo of himself with Mrs Ibrahim and her children on his Facebook account as they were about to land in Rome.

"Mission accomplished," he wrote.

A senior Sudanese official told Reuters news agency that the government in Khartoum had approved her departure in advance.

Mrs Ibrahim's lawyer Mohamed Mostafa Nour told BBC Focus on Africa that she travelled on a Sudanese passport she received at the last minute.

"She is unhappy to leave Sudan. She loves Sudan very much. It's the country she was born and grew up in," he said.

Meriam's husband Daniel Wani in Rome airport

"But her life is in danger so she feels she has to leave. Just two days ago a group called Hamza made a statement that they would kill her and everyone who helps her," he added. Muslims are such lovely people. Good thing it's a religion of peace.

Mrs Ibrahim's husband, Daniel Wani, also a Christian, is from South Sudan and has US nationality.

Their daughter Maya was born in prison in May, shortly after Mrs Ibrahim was sentenced to hang for apostasy - renouncing one's faith.

Under intense international pressure, her conviction was quashed and she was freed in June.

She was given South Sudanese travel documents but was arrested at Khartoum airport, with Sudanese officials saying the travel documents were fake.

These new charges meant she was not allowed to leave the country but she was released into the custody of the US embassy in Khartoum.

Last week, her father's family filed a lawsuit trying to have her marriage annulled, on the basis that a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim.

Thank God she is finally out of the asylum called Sudan. Lord keep her and her family safe from the lunatics who might try to kill her.