People in the Islamic State’s (ISIS/ISIL) way in the Middle East are desperate to fight against the terrorist group as the jihadists expand their caliphate. Syria’s Assyrian Christian population has increasingly expressed frustration over the lack of international funding and arms for their militias, while ISIS continues to kill and abduct hundreds.
Middle Eastern Christians who have suffered persecution at the hands of ISIS in recent months have decided not to turn the other cheek. Instead, they have formed a militia regiment and are currently engaged in fighting the Islamists across a
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Pope Francis once again denounced the atrocious situation in the Middle East on Sunday, promising closeness to the victims of kidnappings and violence and praying for a prompt end to the “intolerable brutality” brought upon the region by Islamic State militants.
Having established themselves in Mosul, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has continued its efforts to destroy the history of the second-largest city in Iraq. The terrorist group published a video of militants destroying thousands years old artifacts with glee and smiles on their faces.
FBI agents intercepted 18-year-old Abdullahi Mohamud Yusuf of Minnesota at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport last May while en route to Syria to join ISIS. He had obtained a passport under false pretenses, claiming that he wanted to visit Istanbul on vacation. He was later formally arrested and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and entered a guilty plea on Thursday. He could spend up to 15 years in prison.
The latest ISIS terror video is apparently running behind schedule—it was supposed to be released on Wednesday—but all indications are that it will include a threat to murder their Christian hostages, including women and children, if the bombing campaign against the Islamic State is not halted.
Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio in Damascus, says that Syria’s ongoing civil war and its war with ISIS have produced one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises since the Second World War, with “upwards of 200,000 deaths, more than a million casualties, more than 7 million IDPs and 4 million refugees.”
In their latest terror campaign, ISIS militants in Syria have rounded up 220 Christian civilians in the past three days, according to reports Thursday from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Having written recently about Westerners traveling to Iraq and Syria to volunteer for duty with Kurdish units against ISIS, I was sad to see the UK Telegraph’s report that the first such volunteer has been killed in battle. He was an Australian who fought under the Kurdish name “Bagok,” and he died while serving with the YPG militia in Syria, which has a battalion of foreign fighters known as the “Lions of Rojeva.”
The FBI conducted a series of terror raids in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday, arresting three men from Uzbekistan who were planning to fly to Syria, join up with ISIS, and perhaps return to New York for a spot of domestic terrorism.
Today marks the third day in ISIS’ latest offensive against a string of Christian towns and villages in northeast Syria. According to Aziz Mirza, with the Syriac Cultural Association, speaking from Qamishli by phone today, ISIS is continuing to push forward in trying to take control of this predominantly Assyrian Christian region.
A Syrian man who fled his native Kobani for Turkey during the Islamic State’s siege of the border town claims the Turkish government has turned his land into the new location of the tomb of Suleyman Shah, and hopes he will be compensated for the “millions” he claims his land is worth.
Officials in Kobani, the predominantly Kurdish city in northern Syria, have been forced to construct hundreds of tents for residents whose homes have been completely destroyed in the ongoing civil war in Syria, Firat News reports. Much of the city, which sits on the Turkish border, was completely ravaged in defending against the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
ISIS kidnaps around 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria; John Kerry says that Russia has repeatedly lied to his face
Around 4:00 in the morning on Monday, February 23rd, an estimated 1500 ISIS fighters attacked a series of Christian towns in northeast Syria, burning churches, taking as many as 90 hostages, and forcing hundreds to flee from their homes.
According to The Daily Mail, over eight British schoolgirls have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) on the “jihadi bride trail.”
An Assyrian Christian militia fighting the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) near Mosul, Iraq may not be able to keep the jihadist group away for much longer because it is running out of ammunition, according to a British news outlet.
Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists have kidnapped dozens of Christians in northern Syria. According to reports, some sources state that as many as 90 were abducted from their homes near Tal Tamr.
Senior Syrian government officials and diplomats are accusing the Turkish government of cooperating with the Islamic State in the evacuation of the medieval tomb of Suleyman Shah, Turkey’s only sovereign territory not connected to its mainland. The evacuation, said one minister, was an “act of war” against Syria.
The parents and siblings of three teenagers who fled England last week to join ISIS in Syria have pleaded with them to return home.
The Turkish government has evacuated the site of the Tomb of Süleyman Şah and relocated the tomb’s priceless artifacts to protect it from the Islamic State. The Syrian government is calling the move a “flagrant aggression,” as Turkey did not request permission to traverse sovereign Syrian territory to reach the tomb.
The Islamic State has released a new video advertising its “Farouk Institute for Cubs,” a new training camp designed to teach young boys the basics of both radical Islam and warfare. Unlike many of its videos depicting child soldiers, this video shows dozens of child soldiers in combat uniforms and handling weapons.
The Syrian army can defeat the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) and al-Qaeda if Jordan and Turkey stop the flow of jihadists across their borders, said the Syrian foreign minister.
U.N. may release list of Syrian war criminals; Greece apparently caves in on bailout crisis
