74 children executed by ISIS for 'crimes' that include refusal to fast, report says | Fox News

The following excerpts are from FoxNews.com:

The blood-soaked executioners of ISIS have spared neither women nor children since the jihadist army established its caliphate a year ago, putting an estimated 74 kids and even more women to death for such offenses as practicing “magic” and refusing to fast during Ramadan.

A total of 3,027 people have been executed by ISIS since it declared itself a state under strict Islamic law in Syria and Iraq last June, according to a new report by the UK-based group, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Many of the charges against those executed are recorded as blasphemy and spying, but others include sorcery, sodomy, practicing as a Shia Muslim," the report states.

Just this week, two children whose ages were not known were crucified in the Mayadin, Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria after ISIS accused them of not properly fasting during Ramadan. The children’s bodies, put on public display on crossbars, each bore a sign explaining their violation during the holy month for Muslims that runs June 17 to July 17. With each execution justified by ISIS' medieval interpretation of the Koran, the group is attempting to portray itself as the true practitioners of Islam, say experts.

“Underlying all these executions is the apocalypse ideology of the final battle between the believers and the unbelievers,” said Jasmine Opperman, the director of Southern Africa Operations at the Terrorism, Research & Analysis Consortium. “ISIS is using executions to show its followers -- and would-be followers -- that the group is the only true representative of believers, not only in word, but action, which is why executions are featured so prominently.”

Other children died fighting for their lives.

“The violent Islamist group appears to demonstrate a particular interest in children, releasing videos of children fighting in cages and undertaking military training,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said. “The report also details moves undertaken by the group to entice children to join, which include setting up offices called "cubs of the caliphate" that recruit children to fight for ISIS.”

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child released a report in February, documenting the many horrors ISIS has imposed on children who are Kurdish, Yazidi, Christian and even Muslim. Children – even those who are mentally challenged – are being tortured, crucified, buried alive, used as suicide bombers and sold as sex slaves, the report said.

“ISIS is hoping to spur current supporters around the world who are dormant, of which there are millions, into joining their caliphate by advertising acts like these, of which there are millions,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about the threat of Islamic extremism. “They know that they can greatly increase their numbers by appealing to current radicals rather than the broader masses.”

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74 children executed by ISIS for 'crimes' that include refusal to fast, report says | Fox News

Assyrian Monks Won't Leave Ancient Monastery Amid ISIL Threat

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Yousif Ibrahim, the head monk at Saint Matthew's Monastery,
laments the ever present struggle the Christian community faces in Iraq
(photo: Abed al Qaisi)

AL-FAF, Iraq -- Yousif Ibrahim paces down the 1,600-year-old chamber room of Saint Matthew's Monastery passing rows of empty polished-wood pews. Ornate crystal chandeliers hang from the arched ceiling above him. The room smells of dust and incense, and its silence is peaceful. Outside of the ancient walls, however, the battle for Iraq is raging.

"We can see the battles and the airstrikes from here in front of us, especially at night. The sky lights up at night, but we of course are not scared. God protects us," Ibrahim, one of three monks who resides in the monastery, says.

Situated on the side of Mount Al-Faf in North Iraq's Nineveh Plains, St. Matthew's Monastery is recognized as one of the oldest Christian monasteries in Iraq. Today, the beige stone structure looks down on the rolling hills of one of Iraq's most active frontlines against the Islamic State, less than four miles away.

The horizon is spotted with pluming towers of white and black smoke from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and heavy artillery fire. From this frontline, Islamic State territory stretches back to Mosul, the group's largest Iraqi stronghold.

The proximity of the Islamic State to St. Matthew's means the monastery is constantly at risk. The extremist group is known for destroying churches, museums and other culturally and historically significant sites.

Last week, the militants seized the Syrian city of Palmyra and its ruins, described by the United Nations as "one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world." The city's fall left the world holding its breath in anticipation of the UNESCO World Heritage site's destruction.

St. Matthew's is safely under Kurdish Peshmerga military control for now. But Sahar Karaikos, one of six students at the monastery, fears what could happen if the Islamic State advances closer.

"We are not scared, because our teachers give us a feeling of peace here, but we know we are on the frontlines, and in seconds the Islamic State could be here," Karaikos says. "I don't even want to think or speak about the destruction the Islamic State would cause if they took our monastery."

While monks at the monastery say they are confident God and the Peshmerga forces will protect the site, they have removed their most precious relics, including centuries-old Christian manuscripts. The tomb of the monastery's namesake, St. Matthew, lies empty -- the bones have been moved north into the relatively safe territory of the Kurdish Regional Government.

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Assyrian Monks Won't Leave Ancient Monastery Amid ISIL Threat

Islamic State Burned a Woman Alive for Not Engaging in an 'extreme' Sex Act

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Amid all the Islamic State's atrocities -- its massacres of civilians, its beheading of hostages, its pillaging of antiquities -- the systematic violence the jihadists have carried out against countless enslaved women and girls never fails to shock. For months now, we've heard appalling testimony from women who escaped the Islamic State's clutches, many of whom endured rape and other hideous acts of violence.

Zainab Bangura, the U.N.'s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, recently conducted a tour of refugee camps in the shadow of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, war-ravaged countries where the Islamic State commands swaths of territory. She heard a host of horror stories from victims and their families and recounted them in an interview earlier this week with the Middle East Eye, an independent regional news site.

"They are institutionalizing sexual violence," Bangura said of the Islamic State. "The brutalization of women and girls is central to their ideology."

Bangura detailed the processes by which "pretty virgins" captured by the jihadists were bought and sold at auctions. Here's a chilling excerpt:

After attacking a village, [the Islamic State] splits women from men and executes boys and men aged 14 and over. The women and mothers are separated; girls are stripped naked, tested for virginity and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest virgins fetch higher prices and are sent to Raqqa, the IS stronghold.

There is a hierarchy: sheikhs get first choice, then emirs, then fighters. They often take three or four girls each and keep them for a month or so, until they grow tired of a girl, when she goes back to market. At slave auctions, buyers haggle fiercely, driving down prices by disparaging girls as flat-chested or unattractive.

We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another, who had escaped, told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his "property."

Estimates vary, but there are believed to be somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 women enslaved by the Islamic State. Many are Yazidis, a persecuted minority sect that the extremist Islamic State considers to be apostate "devil-worshippers," in part because of the Yazidis' ancient connection to the region's pre-Islamic past. The jihadists' treatment of Yazidi women, in particular, has been marked out by its contempt and savagery.

Here's Bangura again:

They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have escaped their captors, either by running away, or being ransomed and rescued by their families. Bangura has urged international assistance in providing proper medical and "psychosocial" support to the escaped women, who have experienced terrible trauma.

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Islamic State Burned a Woman Alive for Not Engaging in an 'extreme' Sex Act

ISIS Using Passports Stolen From Westerners to Travel to Syria and Iraq

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

The Islamic State (Isis) militant group reportedly is using passports stolen from unsuspecting Westerners to assist its jihadi supporters to travel to Syria and Iraq.

According to a report by Dubai based Al Aan TV, several passports found in an Isis safehouse following a raid by a local Syrian armed rebel group, belonged to 'innocent' Westerners from the United States, the United Kingdom and France, apart from those belonging to Israel, with no ties to Isis.

The investigative report found that these passports were stolen and were later used by the Isis supporters to travel to Syria.

Jenan Moussa, a correspondent with Al Aan TV noted that she was able to get copies of 34 passports issued by various countries.

Six of the passports were Albanian, four were French, two each were of Holland, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Denmark; and one each of the US, the UK, Israel, Kosovo, Latvia, Finland and the Czech Republic.

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ISIS Using Passports Stolen From Westerners to Travel to Syria

ISIS Demands $23 Million for Assyrian Hostages, Vigil Held in Australia

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(AINA) -- Assyrian church leader are reporting that ISIS has rejected a ransom offer for the 230 Assyrians it captured on February 23 in the Hasaka province of Syria (AINA 2015-02-23). 253 Assyrians were captured in the initial attacks on the 35 Assyrian villages on the Khabur river. 23 were subsequently released but 230 remain in captivity, including 52 children, 84 females and 95 males.

ISIS has demanded 100,000 US dollars for each hostage, for a total of 23 million.

Leading the negotiations with ISIS is Bishop Mellis of Australia. In an interview with SBS Radio in Australia, Bishop Mellis said:

We are a poor nation. These people have not done anything wrong and won't harm anyone. We as Assyrians do not have this amount of money you are asking for.

We offered an amount of money that we cannot disclose at this time. With the amount we offered, we thought it was acceptable, to have the return of the 230 people

After two days, they (ISIS) told us, "the amount the church offered was not acceptable. From now on, we will no longer negotiate with you.

The hostages have been moved to Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria, and are now awaiting trial in Islamic court under Sharia law, where a Muslim judge will decide their fate. Desperate church leaders have pleaded for assistance neighboring countries, including Turkey, in securing the release of the Assyrian hostages.

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ISIS Demands $23 Million for Assyrian Hostages, Vigil Held in Australia

Senior Female ISIS Recruiter is Student From Seattle

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

A senior female Isis figure who reportedly helped recruit women to join the extremist group in areas under its self-declared caliphate has been exposed as a student from Seattle, who may have been living in the city up until March this year.

The person behind the influential @_UmmWaqqas Twitter account has been revealed by Channel 4 as a woman in her 20s who lived and studied in the US.

Her Twitter account had a following of over 8,000 before it was suspended and shows that British recruits, such as Aqsa Mahmood, and other women from Europe were in contact with her in the days running up their departure. Mahmood goes by the name of 'Umm Layth' online and tweets from the @_UmmWaqqas account...

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Senior Female ISIS Recruiter is Student From Seattle

50 ISIS Fighters Killed As Kurds Repel Attack on Villages Near Kirkuk

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- At least two Peshmarga fighters and some 50 Islamic State (ISIS) militants were killed in fierce clashes Tuesday morning in the ethnically-mixed village of Sahl al-Malih, some 30 kilometers south of Kirkuk city.

Field General Tariq Koyi of the Second Peshmerga Infantry in the area told Rudaw that intense house-to-house clashes took place in the early hours after ISIS militants infiltrated the village overnight.

"As far as I know we have lost two Peshmerga," Koyi said. "But at least four dozen Daesh (ISIS) bodies are in our hands now," he said, adding the situation was now under control.

Another Kurdish military source on the ground, who wished to remain anonymous, told Rudaw that at least 40 militants supported by "some local collaborators" had entered the village at 5 am Tuesday and started to shoot at Peshmerga positions.

Sahl al-Malih has a mixed Kurdish-Arab population. Local Kurdish officials have in the past accused some of the Sunni tribes in the area of collaborating with ISIS.

"The Daesh gunmen were surrounded and after three hours of intense shooting they were all eliminated," the military source said. "The Peshmerga are now in a house-to-house search for the remaining elements in the village." He added that the militants had attacked Peshmerga positions from both inside and outside the village in a surprise assault.

ISIS appears to have intensified attacks on Peshmerga positions in areas close to the key oil city of Kirkuk as an anticipated battle for the ISIS stronghold of Mosul nears.

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50 ISIS Fighters Killed As Kurds Repel Attack on Villages Near Kirkuk

Nearly Half of European Militants in Syria, Iraq Are French

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Nearly half of European militants known to have traveled to territory held by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group are French, a report by the country's upper house Senate revealed Wednesday.

Just over 1,430 French people have made their way to Iraq and Syria, representing 47 percent of militants from Europe that are known and accounted for, Senator Jean-Pierre Sueur, who spearheaded a parliamentary probe into militant networks, told reporters.

According to Sueur, French domestic intelligence services are currently monitoring more than 3,000 people suspected of being involved in one way or another in Syrian networks -- a 24-percent increase since November last year.

Some 85 French nationals are thought to have died in ISIS-held zones while two are being held in Syria, the report said.

Of particular concern to intelligence services, some 200 have left to come back to France, prompting fears they may stage attacks mirroring the January 7-9 shooting spree that left 17 dead.

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Nearly Half of European Militants in Syria, Iraq Are French

Iraq Foreign Minister Backs Syria Fight Against 'Terror'

A picture released on March 24, 2015 by the official Syrian Arab News Agency shows President Bashar al-Assad (R) meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Damascus (AFP Photo).

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Damascus (AFP) -- Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday in the first visit by a senior Baghdad official since Syria's conflict began in 2011.

Speaking after meeting Assad and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem, Jaafari urged regional support for Damascus as it battles "terrorism".

"Arab countries should support Syria in its fight against terrorism," Jaafari said, calling on "neighbouring countries to stand with Iraq and Syria".

He said extremism "would reach all the countries if there is no cooperation".

Jaafari expressed the hope that his visit would "increase the level of cooperation between Syria and Iraq to counter the dangers threatening our brotherly nations".

In June 2014, Damascus announced its readiness to coordinate with Baghdad in order to face the threat posed by the Islamic State group, which has a strong presence in both countries.

Muallem emphasised the joint threat, saying that both countries were "in the same trench (fighting) against terrorism".

"We have great confidence... in the Iraqi leaders who will not spare any effort to support Syria and break the embargo imposed on it," Muallem said.

The Syrian minister also called for increased cooperation with Egypt, saying: "Syria, Egypt, and Iraq can change the way events are unfolding in the region."

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Iraq Foreign Minister Backs Syria Fight Against 'Terror'

Syria's Assad Urges United Front With Iraq Against Terrorism

Rebel fighters work on a computer to determine their target points ahead of an offensive against forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at the frontline of Idlib city in northern Syria March 23, 2015. Picture taken March 23, 2015 (REUTERS/KHALIL ASHAWI)

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(Reuters) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called on Tuesday during talks with Iraq's foreign minister in Damascus for a united front with Baghdad in tackling terrorism as the two countries battle Islamic State militants on their territory.

The Shi'ite Muslim-led government in Baghdad, along with Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, has been an important ally for Assad. Shi'ite Iraqi militias have fought on Assad's side against the insurgency spearheaded by Sunni Islamists.

But Iraqi armed forces are also the main partner on the ground for a U.S.-led coalition bombing the Islamic State militants in Iraq. Washington and its Western allies have dismissed the idea of cooperating directly with Assad in the same fight due to his actions during Syria's civil war.

Assad was quoted on his official Twitter account as saying "consultation and coordination between Syria and Iraq reinforces the successes of their people and their armed forces in the face of terrorism".

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, one of the most senior foreign officials to visit Damascus recently, said Syria "will emerge from the crisis stronger and strategic relations between the two countries will continue to evolve", state news agency SANA said.

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Syria's Assad Urges United Front With Iraq Against Terrorism

Islamic State Recruits 400 Children Since January: Syria Monitor

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(Reuters) -- Islamic State has recruited at least 400 children in Syria in the past three months and given these so-called "Cubs of the Caliphate" military training and hardline indoctrination, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the children, all aged under 18, were recruited near schools, mosques and in public areas where Islamic State carries out killings and brutal punishments on local people.

One such young boy appeared in a video early this month shooting dead an Israeli Arab accused by Islamic State of being as spy. A French police source said the boy might be the half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse in 2012.

"They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Observatory.

Islamic State declared a caliphate last year in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq and is being targeted by U.S.-led air strikes in both countries.

It has beheaded or shot dead Syrian civilians, combatants, foreign aid workers and journalists and has released videos appearing to show children witnessing or participating in some of the killings. The group persecutes people across sects and ethnicities who do not adhere to its ultra-hardline doctrine.

The group may be resorting to children because it has been having difficulties recruiting adults since the start of the year, with only 120 joining its ranks, Abdulrahman said.

This was partly due to tighter controls on the Turkish border, where foreign fighters tend to enter, he added.

Islamic State has encouraged parents to send children to training camps or has recruited them without their parents' consent, often luring them with money, said the Observatory, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground.

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Islamic State Recruits 400 Children Since January: Syria Monitor

Assyrian Bishop to the Jihadists: Our Church Does Not Identify Itself With Any Armed Group

The following excerpts are from Fides News Agency:

Hasaka, Syria -- The Assyrian Church of the East -- to which hundreds of Christians in the Khabur valley taken hostage by jihadists of the Islamic State (Is) belong -- has chosen not to identify itself with any of the warring parties in the Syrian conflict and insists that Christians are "unrelated to the culture of weapons" and clearly states that no faction or paramilitary militia operating in Syria can present themselves as a military wing connected to the Assyrian Christian communities.

These are the contents of the letter that Assyrian Bishop Afram Athnil addressed to the leaders of Is to highlight the distances from all armed groups operating in the field - including self-defense militias formed by the Assyrians - and to demand the release of hundreds of Christian hostages still in the hands of jihadists. "In his letter - confirms to Agenzia Fides Syrian Catholic Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo - Bishop Afram has denied the existence of an alliance with Kurdish soldiers linked to the PKK, and hinted that the militias known by the acronym of 'Sotoro', also described in the international press as Assyrian Christian militias, have never had any mandate and approval by the Church".

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Assyrian Bishop to the Jihadists: Our Church Does Not Identify Itself With Any Armed Group

Report Says Nearly 650,000 Besieged in Syria

Assyrian Christians fleeing advancing Islamic State jihadists in the Syrian province of Hasakeh
(Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Nearly 650,000 Syrians are living in besieged communities in the country's civil war, more than three times the UN estimate, according to a new report that gives a graphic account of hundreds of deaths in areas the world has struggled for years to reach.

The report says Syria's government is responsible for the siege tactics that have led to deaths by starvation, dehydration and the lack of medical care. The document does not look at what it calls the short-term siege tactics used by Islamic State, which has beheaded and massacred its opponents in the area straddling the Syria-Iraq border currently under its control.

The "Slow Death" report, obtained in advance by Associated Press, is by the Syrian American Medical Society, which supports medical workers in besieged areas. The organisation presented its findings on Thursday to UN officials and to a closed-door meeting sponsored by the United States, Britain, France and other states and organised by Qatar.

The UN estimates that 212,000 Syrians live in besieged areas beyond the reach of humanitarian aid. But the new report, to be released next week, says the UN is too narrowly defining "besieged" and is inadvertently underplaying the crisis. It says more than 640,200 people are besieged. It also echoes claims by an increasing number of aid groups that the international response to the overall conflict, particularly by the deeply divided UN Security Council, has failed.

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Report Says Nearly 650,000 Besieged in Syria

Report: Hezbollah to send forces to fight alongside Iraq in Mosul, against ISIS - Middle East - Jerusalem Post

A Shi'ite cleric wearing military uniform with Hezbollah members..
 (photo credit:REUTERS)

The following excerpts are from The Jerusalem Post:

Hezbollah will send 800 men to fight alongside Iraqi forces against Islamic State for the control of Mosul, the London-based al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper reported Sunday.

According to sources, following the battle over Tikrit, Tehran turned to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a joint Iraqi-Iranian request to support the fight against Islamic State in Mosul with trained fighters. An unnamed source told al-Jadeed that Nasrallah agreed to send about 800 men from elite units to participate in the anticipated battle.

The source cited the similarity between the topography of southern Lebanon and the mountainous terrain of Mosul as an advantage in the integration of Hezbollah forces into the fighting, saying the Lebanese men are already familiar and experienced fighters in both open areas and narrow streets.

The fighters will enter Iraq equipped with light gear and arms.

Once there, Iran will equip the men with heavy weapons.

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Report: Hezbollah to send forces to fight alongside Iraq in Mosul, against ISIS - Middle East - Jerusalem Post

Iraqi Kurds say ISIS used chemical weapons against troops | Fox News

The following excerpts are from FoxNews.com:

Iraqi Kurdish authorities said Saturday that their troops are being attacked by Islamic State fighters using chemical weapons.

The Kurdish Regional Security Council released a statement saying it has evidence showing the ISIS fighters used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against Kurdish military forces known as peshmerga fighters.

The council said the alleged chemical attack took place on a road between Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and the Syrian border, as forces fought to seize a vital supply line used by the Sunni militants. It said its fighters later found "around 20 gas canisters" that had been loaded onto the truck involved in the attack.

Video provided by the council showed a truck racing down a road, white smoke pouring out of it as it came under heavy fire from peshmerga fighters. It later showed a white, billowing cloud after the truck exploded and the remnants of it scattered across a road.

An official with the Kurdish council told The Associated Press that dozens of peshmerga fighters were treated for "dizziness, nausea, vomiting and general weakness" after the attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the incident.

The assertion has yet to be verified, but such battlefield tactics are banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. [As if ISIS hasn't already shown their barbarism.]

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Iraqi Kurds say ISIS used chemical weapons against troops | Fox News

A Letter to Obama From an Assyrian American Student

Assyrians in Chicago rally in support of Assyrians in Syria and Iraq.

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

(AINA) -- Assyrians held a rally in Chicago yesterday to call attention to the plight of Assyrians in Syria and Iraq. In Iraq ISIS destroyed a third Assyrian archaeological site, the city of Khorsabad, more than 2700 years old. This comes on the heels of ISIS destroying the city of Nimrud, the Museum of Mosul, and the walls of the city of Nineveh.

In Syria, ISIS is still holding over 300 Assyrians who were captured in the first attacks on the Assyrian villages on February 23, which drove 3,000 Assyrians away, never to return. 6 months before that ISIS drove 200,000 Assyrians out of their homes in the Nineveh Plain in north Iraq, and they still have not returned, and most likely never will.

As they were being released, ISIS told the Assyrians from Syria to never return to their villages, else they would be killed. They are in Hasaka with only the clothes on their backs, all of their possessions lost forever, unreachable in their ISIS occupied village.

But the destruction of ancient Assyrian cities and artifacts in Iraq and Syria is the most devastating -- because of its symbolism. In destroying Assyrian archaeological and historical sites, ISIS is striking at the very root of Assyrian civilization, erasing all traces of their heritage and extirpating them from their lands.

Reine Hanna, an Assyrian college student in Chicago, penned the following letter to President Obama:

Dear Mr. President:

I woke this morning to find that your appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" was trending on every major social media platform. I watched the clip of the "Mean Tweets" segment - something I have seen previously featuring the likes of Snooki, Lil Wayne, and Justin Bieber. My initial reaction to the clip was in distaste, simply because I find it odd that the President of the United States would level himself with such celebrities. But I get it, I do: Mr. Kimmel even prefaced the clip by reminding us you are human, after all. With this in mind, I don't see any issues with you as our President golfing, submitting an NCAA bracket, or visiting late-night TV shows. I can also see why many Americans may have found your appearance last night so funny.

But you should know, Mr. President, that there are Americans that haven't laughed in weeks. Not since the attacks launched on the Assyrian towns in Syria on February 23, 2015. Actually, we haven't really had the heart to laugh since ISIL invaded the Nineveh Plain in the summer of 2014. After all, how can we? How can we laugh without knowing the fate of the nearly three-hundred innocent Assyrian men, women, and children that were taken hostage? After watching our ancient reliefs reduced to dust? How can we laugh after seeing that terrible image released just yesterday of a woman hanging dead from a log, dangling alongside her two young sons?

Mr. Kimmel is right, Mr. President - you are human. But as a human, how can you laugh, sir? While girls as young as your beautiful daughters are taken captive and sold as slaves? As a husband and a father, how can you allow such atrocities to occur to innocent women and children knowing you have the power to stop them?

During your interview, the recent events in Ferguson were addressed, at which point you stated, "What had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest..." As an American of Assyrian background, I - like many others - feel that what has been happening to Assyrians in Iraq and Syria is beyond oppressive, undoubtedly objectionable, and most certainly worthy of protest. Even so, you have yet to make a direct statement related to the ongoing plight of Assyrians in the Middle East, and instead, have chosen to mask it, which consequently belittles our suffering. Please understand why we would be insulted by your inaction, capped with your appearance on Mr. Kimmel's show last night.

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A Letter to Obama From an Assyrian American Student

The Assyrian Christians Who Are Defying ISIS

A church in the Assyrian village of Abu Tina, Syria,
recently captured by Islamic State fighters, February 25, 2015.

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

The persecution of Christians in the Middle East is a "once-in-a-thousand-year-crisis", but they are refusing to back down in the face of Islamic State, US author Johnnie Moore has said.

In an exclusive interview with Christian Today, Moore -- whose book 'Defying ISIS', published this weekend, is based on exhaustive research -- said that though ISIS militants have systematically targeted numerous religious minorities, including Shiite Muslims, "it is absolutely true that they [ISIS] have a particular interest in eliminating the Christian communities. It's overt, it's not hidden and it's not an exaggerated crisis."

The front page of the October edition of ISIS' online propaganda magazine Dabiq featured the Islamic State flag depicted as flying from the obelisk in St Peter's Square. In an accompanying article, the group renewed its threat to "conquer" Rome, and urged Muslims to kill "every crusader possible...wherever they can be found".

Just two weeks ago, militants targeted Assyrian Christians in the Khabour region, taking more than 200 hostage and killing at least 30. Jihadists then bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, a site of such historical significance that an expert likened it to the Egyptian pyramids, and later also destroyed the city of Hatra -- another World Heritage Site considered to be one of the most important in the world.

The Assyrians have been targeted "solely because they are Christians", Moore said. "And it's sort of akin to what the Nazis did -- they've squeezed them out...The atrocities against women and children are incomprehensible."

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The Assyrian Christians Who Are Defying ISIS

ISIS Burned 1,500 Historical Manuscripts and Sold Assyrian Sculptures

The following excerpts are from AINA.org:

Islamic State (ISIS) has burned 1,500 historical manuscripts in Iraq and sold Assyrian sculptures on the black market, the country's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities revealed yesterday.

The Undersecretary of the Minister of Tourism Qais Hussein Rashid said that the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq, which is under ISIS control, is at the forefront of Iraqi provinces that contain the largest number of archaeological sites.

Speaking at a symposium held by the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism at the Council headquarters in Baghdad, under the slogan "ISIS: The Enemy of Humanity, History and Civilisation", Rashid pointed out that the militants illegally dug into the archaeological sites and sold the pieces they found, noting that his ministry was able to stop the sale of some Iraqi antiquities in some international auctions.

While he listed the sites that were destroyed, he reported that ISIS blew the shrine of Ibn Al-Atheer ten days after they occupied Mosul, and the Shrine of the Prophet Yunus, under which important Assyrian antiquities exist.

He added that the militants have sold Assyrian sculptures and burned 1,500 manuscripts, expressing his fears that ISIS may demolish 520 heritage houses in Mosul.

Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Adel Shershab, said ISIS had destroyed the archaeological areas in Iraq.

Shershab called on "friendly countries to take a genuine stand to restore the stolen antiquities."

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ISIS Burned 1,500 Historical Manuscripts and Sold Assyrian Sculptures