Thanks to the heroics of a former U.S. Marine turned missionary, a baby boy is alive and well after he was rescued deep in the heart of former ISIS stronghold, Mosul, in Iraq.
Victor Marx, founder of All Things Possible Ministries (ATP), recalled one of his recent exploits in a Middle East war zone in a video blog on his Facebook page.
"We went in deep for this mission," Marx says in the video, which has nearly 400,000 views and 5,000 shares.
"We got a call from General Mustafa, contacted and said there's an orphan baby boy that needs help," says Marx, speaking from the back seat of a vehicle while cradling the apparently sleeping baby.
On a Facebook post on Monday, Marx gave a few more details about the "high-risk" rescue mission.
"Last night was very difficult, coming out of harsh living condition and the instant loss of his momma and daddy shot killed by Isis machine gunner while he was being carried by his mother," he wrote.
Marx said he just got home that day carrying "diaper rash cream, baby powder, more diapers, drops of medicine for his tummy and my Ak47 and Glock! Haha."
In the video blog, Marx says the "little boy will now be called Ali, named after the soldier who was killed trying to help his parents escape."
He says Baby Ali is now safe and is being treated for a distended tummy and bronchitis.
On his website, Marx is described as a missionary and child advocate who helps free children from dangerous situations all over the world, taking teams of missionaries and aid workers on what he calls "high-risk missions" where no one else wants to go but where the need is great.
Aside from being a former U.S. Marine, Marx is a trained martial arts seventh-degree black belt.
Marx is a colleague of another former U.S. soldier turned missionary, David Eubank, who leads the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian group also working in the war zones of the Middle East.
In a previous CP report last month, Eubank recalled how he witnessed God's intervention that allowed him and a group of Iraqi soldiers to rescue an Iraqi girl and two other survivors of a massacre perpetrated by ISIS militants.
