Post-Christians’ abduction, air strikes hit IS : The Tribune India

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Post-Christians’ abduction, air strikes hit IS

BEIRUT: A US-led alliance launched air strikes against Islamic State on Thursday in an area of northeast Syria where the militants are now estimated to have abducted at least 220 Assyrian Christians this week, a group monitoring the war reported.

Post-Christians’ abduction, air strikes hit IS

A fighter of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units fires an anti-aircraft weapon from Tel Tawil village in the direction of jihadists on Wednesday. Reuters



Beirut, February 26

A US-led alliance launched air strikes against Islamic State on Thursday in an area of northeast Syria where the militants are now estimated to have abducted at least 220 Assyrian Christians this week, a group monitoring the war reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strikes targeted Islamic State fighters near the town of Tel Tamr, where the militants had captured 10 Assyrian villages.

A prominent Syrian Christian, Bassam Ishak, told Reuters: "Some people have tried to call them by cellphone, the relatives that have been abducted, and they get an answer from a member of IS who tells that they will send the head of their relative. "They are trying to terrorise the parents, the relatives in the Christian Assyrian community," said Ishak, who is president of the Syriac National Council of Syria.

Islamic State has staged mass killings of religious minorities, as well as fellow Sunni Muslims who refuse to swear allegiance to the "caliphate" it has declared in parts of Syria, Iraq and other areas of the Arab world. Its fighters were shown beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya last week. Last August, it killed or enslaved hundreds of Iraq's Yazidis, whom it considers devil worshippers, just over the nearby frontier in Iraq. The militants have previously used kidnappings to trade captives for their own captured fighters. It was not clear if they planned to do the same this time.

"What is happening is a threat to our existence," said Ablahd Kourieh, an Assyrian Christian who is deputy head of a Kurdish-led defence council in northeastern Syria, speaking to Reuters from the region via Skype. He estimated the number of abducted Assyrians was even higher, at between 350 and 400. He called on the US-led alliance to mount air strikes and to arm Kurdish-led forces which are battling Islamic State inb the region.

He estimated that 3,000 Assyrians had fled from the villages for the main cities of Qamishli and Hasaka. "We call for bombardment of the terrorists' positions there, and the provision of quality weapons," said Kourieh.

The US and its allies have carried out hundreds of air strikes in both Iraq and Syria since launching a campaign to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State last year. Washington on Wednesday condemned the attacks against Christians, which it said included the burning of homes and churches and abduction of women, children and the elderly.

“Along with our coalition partners, and on behalf of all those persecuted by this terrorist organisation, the United States will continue to lead the fight to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL,” Bernadette Meehan, Spokesperson National Security Council at the White House.

While IS has come under pressure in its strongholds in northeast Syria, its fighters have opened a new front hundreds of miles to the southwest near Damascus, the seat of President Bashar al-Assad's government. — Reuters

3 held for threatening attacks in US
New York:
Three Central Asian men have been arrested here on charges of conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State, with two of them threatening to carry out attacks within the US and against the American President. Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev (24), Akhror Saidakhmetov (19) and Abror Habibov (30) each face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted. — PTI

Jihadists destroy Iraq antiquities
Arbil/Baghdad:
Islamist militants in northern Iraq have destroyed a collection of priceless statues and sculptures dating to the ancient Assyrian era, according to a video published online. The Islamic State video showed men attacking the artefacts, some of them identified as antiquities from the 7th century BC, with sledgehammers or drills, saying they were symbols of idolatry. — Reuters

Oz mercenary killed fighting IS
Melbourne:
An Australian man (28), who was one of foreigners to have travelled to Syria to join Kurds battling IS, has been killed in the strife-torn country, becoming the first Westerners to die fighting the group. "An Australian man was killed in an assault on Tuesday by IS against a position of the Kurdish People's Protection Units near Tal Hamis," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. — PTI

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