Tag: Islamic State

Four years since teenage graffiti sparks Syrian civil war

March 12, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Civil War, Daraa, Islamic State, Khabur, Syria

Four years ago this week a group of young teenagers with a can full of paint sprayed messages on a wall in the Syrian city of Daraa. They couldn’t have known it but, over the next nine days, their graffiti would escalate into the Syrian civil war, which reaches its . . . Read More

Reports of ‘blanket’ release of Assyrians dashed

March 12, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Syria

Most Assyrian Christian families taken hostage in northeast Syria more than two weeks ago remain in Islamic State hands, despite initial reports indicating all, or nearly all, had been released. Initial news that IS forces had released all the Christian detainees after Friday prayers March 6 was reported to the . . . Read More

23 Assyrian Christians released in Syria

March 6, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Kobani, Qamishli, Syria, Syriacs

Assyrians from Tel Goran village, abducted by Islamic State kidnappers in late February, were released and returned safely in Hassaka on March 2.Photo provided by CAPNI Ten days after the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s harsh offensive emptied out a cluster of Assyrian Christian villages in northeast Syria, the extremists’ intentions . . . Read More

Another Copt beheaded in Libya

March 5, 2015 Libya Copts, Islamic State, Libya

Libyan security forces have found the beheaded body of another Egyptian Coptic Christian, Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency reports. Discovered Mar. 2 on the outskirts of Mechili town in eastern Libya, the body was identified by his cousins as Mansour Saad Awad, who had been working at a poultry . . . Read More

Abandoned Syrian Christian leaders urge air strike

February 27, 2015 Syria Hasakah, Islamic State, Kobani, Kurds, Syria

A Syrian Christian leader is urging the US to strike IS held positions following the news earlier this week that up to 220 Syrian Christians were kidnapped from Hassaka province. “There is a need for immediate action similar to what took place in Kobani,” Bassam Ishak, president of the Syriac . . . Read More

‘Turkey failed’ 100+ Christians abducted by IS

February 26, 2015 Syria Damascus, Hasakah, Islamic State, Kurds, Syria, Turkey

The Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Hassaka-Nisibi has accused Turkey of preventing Christians from fleeing Syria to safety across the Turkish border, two days after Islamic State militants abducted at least 96 people. They lived in a cluster of villages in northeast Syria which had been under the control of Syrian . . . Read More

72 Assyrian Christian families captured, 50 besieged by IS after Syria attack

February 25, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Qamishli, Syria

2009 Easter service at St Mary’s Church, Hassaka. Now only 200 Christian families remain in nearby villages.Photo: World Watch Monitor Sources from Syria’s embattled Hassaka province confirmed at midnight on Tuesday, Feb. 24, that at least 72 Assyrian Christian families – thought to be around 200 people – from three . . . Read More

IS invades 35 Assyrian towns in Syria

February 24, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Qamishli, UN

Militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State launched a fierce offensive before dawn Feb. 23, targeting 35 Assyrian Christian villages in the northeast corner of Syria. The surprise attacks along a 40-kilometer stretch of the Khabour River in Hassaka province forced some 3,000 Christians to flee their homes. A teenage . . . Read More

What Islamic State really wants

February 18, 2015 Al-Qaeda, Genocide, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Osama bin Laden, UK

Few Western leaders understand what ISIS really is but, argues a detailed analysis in The Atlantic, they are wrong to think it applies the logic of Al-Qaeda. ISIS has eclipsed Bin Laden’s organisation and jihadism has evolved. The West needs to see ISIS as “more than a collection of psychopaths” . . . Read More

600,000 Christians have fled Egypt since 1984

February 17, 2015 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Libya, Middle East, Upper Egypt

Rupert Shortt, author of Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack, has written an opinion piece in The Telegraph in which he argues that the murder of 21 Coptic Christians by Islamic State is not an isolated case but instead “the latest of countless outrages perpetrated against Christians in or near the . . . Read More

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