IS Jihadists kidnapped 90 Christians in Syria: Monitor

Jihadists from the Islamic State group have
kidnapped at least 90 Assyrian Christians in
northeast Syria, after overrunning two villages,
a monitor said Tuesday.
The abductions appeared to be the first time
the group has kidnapped Christians en masse
in Syria, though the jihadists have taken
thousands of prisoners as they have advanced
in the country and neighbouring Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a
Britain-based monitor, said IS kidnapped the
90 Assyrians on Monday after seizing two
villages in Hassakeh province.
The group had no immediate details on those
kidnapped, including whether women and
children were among them, or where they
were being held.
There were just 30,000 Assyrians in Syria
before the country’s conflict erupted in March
2011, with most of them living throughout
Hassakeh province.
They represent a tiny percentage of the
country’s overall Christian population, which
numbered around 1.2 million people before
the war.
The 90 Assyrians were kidnapped after IS
fighters overran the villages of Tal Shamiram
and Tal Hermuz, which had been under the
control of Kurdish People’s Protection Unit
(YPG) fighters.
Fierce clashes broke out on Monday between
IS and YPG forces for control of the two
villages as well as the nearby town of Tal
Tamr, which remains under Kurdish control.
After the clashes, IS forces set fire to part of a
church near Tal Tamr, before installing some
of their fighters in the remains of the building,
the Syrian Revolution General Commission
activist network reported.
The US-led coalition fighting IS, which has
backed Kurdish forces battling the group, then
bombed the building on Monday, destroying it
and killing IS forces inside, the SRGC said.
Control of Hassakeh province is largely
divided between Kurdish forces, who in some
places patrol with regime troops, and IS
fighters.
YPG fighters have since last week been
advancing in the province, expanding on their
gains further west in Raqa and Aleppo
provinces.
Since recapturing the strategic border town of
Kobane in Aleppo from IS fighters on January
26, YPG forces have taken dozens of nearby
villages.
They have also seized 19 villages from IS in
Raqa, where the jihadist group has its de facto
capital, and another 30 villages and hamlets in
Hassakeh.
The Kurdish advances have been aided by the
US-led air strikes, including a series in
Hassakeh on Monday that killed at least 14 IS
fighters, the Observatory said.


- Christian churches destroyed -


The mass IS abduction of Assyrians appeared
to be the first of its kind in Syria, but the
group has become infamous for its abuses,
including the mass kidnapping of minority
Kurdish Yazidis in Iraq.
It also abducted dozens of Kurdish students in
Syria last year, freeing them only after months
in captivity.
The group has destroyed Christian shrines
and churches in the territory it controls in Syria
and Iraq, and demanded a tax known as jizya
from Christians who remain in its self-declared
Islamic “caliphate”.
It regularly refers to Christians as “crusaders,”
and has carried out brutal executions of
foreigners held hostage in Syria.
Last week, the group’s Libyan branch released
a video showing the gruesome beheading of
21 mostly Egyptian Coptic Christians.
Those killings prompted “extreme sadness”
from Pope Francis, who has frequently warned
of the plight of the dwindling number of
Christians in the Middle East.

The Monitor.