ISIS militants abducted 90 Assyrians — from a group with a long history that’s now predominantly Christian — from two villages in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group reported Tuesday.
The militants abducted the Assyrians from Tal Shamiram and Tal Hermz, near the town of Tal Tamer in Al Hasakah province, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The group said that “reliable sources” overheard ISIS militants talking on wireless devices about having detained “56 crusaders” in Tal Shamiram alone.
Not far away in the village of Ghibsh, ISIS executed two citizens for “dealing with the Kurds,” the Syrian Observatory reported. Fighters from the Kurdish Peshmerga have crossed over from Iraq into Syria to battle the Islamist extremist group.
Also known as the Islamic State, ISIS has attacked numerous minority groups like the Assyrians during its bloody campaign to create a vast caliphate across Syria and Iraq under its extreme version of Sharia law.
The Assyrians, who have been among the militants’ targets, have a history dating back to the 2000s BC in the time of Mesopotamia, which is considered one of the earliest cradles of civilization and the birthplace of writing and literature. While its first religion was Ashurism, Assyrians have been predominantly Christian since the third century AD.
This summer, ISIS overran the city of Qaraqosh, a historic Assyrian town of 50,000 people in northern Iraq about 20 miles southeast of Mosul.
Many Mosul residents had fled to Qaraqosh after the Islamist extremists took over that city, Iraq’s second-largest. At the time, ISIS issued an ultimatum to Christians living there: Convert to Islam, pay a fine or face “death by sword.”
The latest reported abduction occurred about 160 miles (255 kilometers) east of Qaraqosh, which shows the wide reach of Assyrians as well as ISIS.