Islamic State in Syria abducts at least 90 from Christian villages: monitor

[LibCampFireClub 635]

When is enough going to be enough! We are the world's leader in stopping this. This abduction happened to these people not because they are "citizens", but because they are Christian.

Islamic State in Syria abducts at least 90 from Christian villages: monitor

(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have abducted at least 90 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group that tracks violence in Syria said on Tuesday.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds.

Syrian Kurdish militia launched two offensives against the militants in northeast Syria on Sunday, helped by U.S.-led air strikes and Iraqi peshmerga.

This part of Syria is strategically important in the fight against Islamic State because it borders territory controlled by the group in Iraq, where it last year committed atrocities against the minority religious Yazidi community.

Many Assyrian Christians have emigrated in the nearly four-year-long conflict in which more than 200,000 have people have been killed. Before the arrival of Kurds and Arab nomadic tribes at the end of the 19th century, Christians formed the majority in Syria's Jazeera area, which includes Hasaka.

Sunday's offensive by Kurdish YPG militia reached within 5 km (3 miles) of Tel Hamis, an Islamic State controlled town south east of Qamishli, the Observatory said.

At least 14 IS fighters died in the offensive, which involved Assyrian fighters, and eight civilians were also killed in heavy shelling by the Kurdish side which seized several Arab villages from Islamic State control, the monitoring group said.

Last year, Islamic State fighters abducted several Assyrians in retaliation for some of them fighting alongside the YPG. Most were released after long negotiations.

Military experts following Syria said Islamic State was trying to open a new front to relieve pressure on the group after the string of losses since being driven from the Syrian town of Kobani near the border with Turkey.

"Islamic State are losing in several areas so they want to wage an attack on a new area," said retired Jordanian general Fayez Dwiri.

Since driving IS from Kobani, Kurdish forces, backed by other Syrian armed groups, have pursued the group's fighters as far as their provincial stronghold of Raqqa.

A resident of Hasaka, which is jointly held by the Syrian government and the Kurds, said hundreds of families had arrived in the last few days from surrounding Christian villages and of Arab Bedouin refugees were arriving from areas along the border.

"Families are coming to Hasaka seeking safety," said Abdul Rahman al-Numai, a textile trader said via telephone.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/24/us-mideast-crisis-christians-idUSKBN0LS0MH20150224

Edited February 24, 2015 by ExExpat

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You stopped being that in 2003.

[lostinblue 1,989]

They need more child slaves to marry off to the fighters joining their expanding ranks.

[LibCampFireClub 635]

The door to hell has been opened again after the world thought it had been closed forever.

Monitor: 90 Christians abducted by ISIL in Syria

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says abductions took place after ISIL seized Assyrian villages from Kurdish forces. The kidnapping appears to be in direct response to recent gains made by Kurdish forces in Syria's northeast

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have kidnapped at least 90 Assyrian Christians in northeast Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday.

The Observatory said the abductions took place on Tuesday after ISIL fighters seized two Assyrian villages from Kurdish forces in the province of Hassakeh, the Reuters news agency reported.

The villages are inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near the town of Tel Tamr, a mainly Assyrian town, in the western countryside of the city of Hasaka - a city mainly held by the Kurds.

Al Jazeera's Nisreen el-Shamayleh, reporting from Amman, said the kidnapping appeared to be in direct response to recent gains made by Kurdish forces in Syria's northeast.

Our correspondent said there were few details about the fate of the hostages and that the Observatory was the only group who had been able to confirm the incidents.Much of Hassakeh is divided between Kurdish and ISIL control.

Kurdish offensive

Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have been on the offensive in the province in recent days.

They have taken 24 villages and hamlets as part of an operation to try to recapture the town of Tal Hamis and surrounding areas, the AFP news agency reported.

Tal Hamis lies to the east of the villages taken by ISIL on Tuesday. YPG forces have also been on the offensive in Raqa province, which neighbours Hassakeh, seizing 19 villages as they advance following their recapture of the strategic border town of Kobane last month.

The Kurdish forces have been backed by US-led air strikes launched by the international coalition fighting ISIL. The Observatory said the coalition carried out a series of strikes around Tal Hamis on Tuesday that killed 14 ISIL fighters.

This part of Syria is strategically important in the fight against ISIL because it borders territory controlled by the group in Iraq, where last year the armed group committed attacked the Yazidi community. ISIL has destroyed churches and Christian shrines in Syria, and demanded that Christians living under its rule pay a tax known as jizya.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/monitor-90-christians-abducted-isil-syria-150224083452197.html

Edited February 24, 2015 by ExExpat

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

We're the leaders in stopping this? The reality is that we fertilized the ground for this.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

We're the leaders in stopping this? The reality is that we fertilized the ground for this.

Which is what everyone said would happen.

[lostinblue 1,989]

[LibCampFireClub 635]

Not "everyone" predicted it. Obozo did not.

[lostinblue 1,989]

We're the leaders in stopping this? The reality is that we fertilized the ground for this.

Who is going to stop them the British....

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Who is going to stop them the British....

Missing the point as always, are we?

[JohnR! 5,495]

Frequencies sometimes jam inside the bunker... :rofl: :rofl:

Missing the point as always, are we?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Missing the point as always, are we?

He doesn't have a point.

As a British citizen I wouldn't want the government to be getting embroiled in yet another middle east war

Im not sure why some Americans think that the US has a mandate to stop ISIS. They don't.