Tag: Hasakah

10 Assyrians released after ‘negotiations’

November 25, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Homs, Islamic State, Khabur, Qaryatain, Syria

The Islamic State has released 10 more Assyrians, from over 200 indigenous Christians it had snatched from their communities in north eastern Syria in February. The civilians, five men and five women, were released Tuesday evening, the Assyrian Human Rights Network (AHRN) reported. The released hostages, from Tel Shamiram, Tel Jazeera, . . . Read More

37 Assyrian Christians released in Syria

November 9, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Khabur, Qaryatain, Syria

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has released another 37 Assyrian Christians kidnapped nine months ago in Syria, Assyrian sources said. The group, including men and women in their sixties and seventies, were among the 253 Christians snatched in IS attacks on Assyrian villages in northeastern Syria’s Hassaka province. Three thousand . . . Read More

IS releases first execution video of Syrian Christians

October 9, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Hezbollah, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Khabur, Syria

A video released by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) on 7 Oct. has showed the jihadists killing three Assyrian Christian hostages with shots to the back of their heads. According to the Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights, it is the first IS video showing Christians in Syria being executed. Shown . . . Read More

Jihadists release Syrian priest, 22 elderly Assyrians

August 19, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Boulos Yazigi, Catholics, Hasakah, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Khabur, Paolo Dall’Oglio, Qaryatain, Sadad, Syria, Yohanna Ibrahim

Five weeks after Fr. Antoine Boutros and his driver were kidnapped on their way to Sunday mass in southern Syria’s Suweida province on July 12, the Catholic parish priest has been released. Disclosure of the 50-year-old priest’s release on Aug. 15 came from the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, . . . Read More

IS turns ancient Mosul church into mosque

July 14, 2015 Hasakah, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Ramadan, Syria

Islamic State has turned an ancient Chaldean church in Mosul, Iraq into a mosque, according to Fides. St Joseph church, which is considered to be one the oldest churches of the Chaldean denomination and overlooks the Tigris river, has been turned into the Abi Abd El-Rahman Elbilawi mosque, named after a . . . Read More

Iraqi Franciscan priest abducted in northwest Syria

July 8, 2015 Syria Al-Nusra Front, Assyrians, Boulos Yazigi, Greek Orthodox, Hasakah, Idlib, Islamic State, Jacques Mourad, Kidnapping, Paolo Dall’Oglio, Syria, Yohanna Ibrahim

Father Dhiya Aziz was kidnapped by militants from Yacoubieh, Idlib Province, where he serves as parish priest on Sat 4th July. The militants were purportedly taking him for a brief meeting with the Emir who exercises authority in that area, which is under the control of the Al-Qaeda affiliate group, . . . Read More

Islamist forces battle for Hassaka and Aleppo

June 5, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Hasakah, Iraq, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Syria

Islamic State jihadists have begun closing in on two cities in northern Syria where there are still significant Christian communities. “IS is attacking Hassaka, and the situation is not that secure,” Father Emanuel Youkhana from the Christian Aid Program in Northern Iraq (CAPNI) told the Catholic Aleteia network on June . . . Read More

Bishop refutes alleged ‘revenge’ beheading

June 1, 2015 Syria Aleppo, Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Kurds, Syria

The Catholic Bishop of Aleppo has rejected reports of the alleged “revenge” beheading of an Islamic State jihadist by an Assyrian Christian soldier in northeast Syria as “unreliable and unverifiable” rumors. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an unnamed fighter captured a non-Syrian jihadist last week . . . Read More

‘We are going through a terrible moment’

May 7, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Qamishli, Syria

Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana leads prayers for the Hassaka, Syria Christians at a mass in the Assyrian Church of the East in Beirut on March 22, 2015.World Watch Monitor Danger levels rose sharply in late April for northeast Syria’s isolated Assyrian Christians, caught for nearly three months now between Kurdish . . . 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

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