Int'l Coalition Turns Blind Eye to ISIL Abduction of Christians – Official

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The US-led international coalition did nothing to prevent the Islamic State militants from abducting hundreds of Assyrian Christians in northern Syria last week, a Kurdish military official told Sputnik on Monday.

“Sadly, all this tragedy unfolded in front of the international community. During three or four days, as the Islamists carried out mass atrocities, the international coalition forces did not even attempt to stop them. We have the strength to protect ourselves and our families, but we have no weapons,” Goriah Abdel Ahad, Kurdish deputy military commander of the defense council of Jazira Canton, told Sputnik.

Last Monday, the ISIL militants reportedly seized several Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria. The Islamists demolished churches and abducted at least 90 civilians, including priests, women and children. Over the next several days, the extremists captured even more hostages, with their estimated number varying between 200 and 350.

The commander said that according to the council’s data, the Islamic State extremists were keeping from 350 to 400 people hostage. He also said that 18 Assyrians and 16 Kurds, residents of the captured villages, were executed.

On Monday, a main priest of the Assyrian church of Lebanon told RIA Novosti that the group released 23 Christian Assyrians, all of them were in safety.

Assyrians, an ethnic group residing in parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, adopted Christianity in the first century and is deemed as the oldest Christian ethnic group.