Islamic State releases 19 Syrian Christians
BEIRUT – The Islamic State released at least 19 Christians on Sunday who were among the more than 220 people the militants took captive in northeastern Syria last week, activists and a local leader said.
The news provided a modicum of relief to a Christian Assyrian community that has been devastated by the abductions, which saw Islamic State fighters haul off entire families from a string of villages along the Khabur River in Hassakeh province. But fears remain over the fate of the hundreds still held captive.
Bashir Saedi, a senior official in the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said the 16 men and three women arrived safely Sunday at the Church of the Virgin Mary in the city of Hassakeh. He said the 19 – all of them from the village of Tal Ghoran – had traveled by bus from the Islamic State-held town of Shaddadeh south of Hassakeh.
The Assyrian Human Rights Network also reported the release, and published photographs on its Facebook page that it said were from Hassakeh showing a crowd dressed in winter coats greeting the returnees.
It was not immediately clear why the Islamic State group freed these captives. However, the Assyrian Human Rights Network, meanwhile, said the captives had been ordered released by a Shariah court after paying an unspecified amount of money levied as a tax on non-Muslims.
Iraqi issues ultimatum ahead of offensive
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s prime minister called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State group Sunday, ahead of a promised offensive to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the extremists.
Haider al-Abadi offered no timeline for an attack on Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator some 80 miles north of Baghdad that fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer. However, Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces have stationed themselves around Tikrit as state-run media has warned that the city “will soon return to its people.”
But sending Shiite militias into the Sunni city of Tikrit, the capital of Iraq’s Salahuddin province, could reprise the bloody, street-by-street insurgent battles that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. On Saturday, two suicide car bombers killed 16 nearby Shiite militiamen and wounded 31.
Al-Abadi offered what he called “the last chance” for Sunni tribal fighters, promising them a pardon during a news conference in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. His office said he arrived in Samarra to “supervise the operation to liberate Tikrit from the terrorist gangs.”
Fears of isolation grow in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza residents said Sunday they fear growing isolation and more hardships after an Egyptian court declared the territory’s ruling Hamas a terrorist organization. Some blamed the Islamic militant Hamas while others said Egypt is being unreasonable.
Hamas called for protests against the Egyptian government and issued angry statements, but did not offer a way out of the crisis. Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman, alleged Sunday that Egypt has become a “direct agent” of Israeli interests.
Hamas urged Saudi Arabia to press Egypt to open the Gaza-Egypt border. Egypt’s president met Sunday with the new Saudi king.
Saturday’s court ruling signaled Egypt’s growing hostility toward Hamas, an offshoot of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt has blamed Hamas for violence in the country’s restive Sinai Peninsula, a charge Hamas denies.
Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007, and the territory’s borders have been largely sealed by Israel and Egypt since then. Egypt intensified the blockade after its military toppled a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo in 2013.
Iranian plane supplies Yemeni rebels
SANAA, Yemen – An Iranian airplane delivered supplies to Yemen’s Shiite rebel-held capital on Sunday, while the president gained support from influential tribal and provincial leaders in signs that the rival camps seeking to rule the rapidly unravelling country are entrenching their positions.
The first direct flight from Shiite powerhouse Iran to Sanaa was carrying 12 tons of medical supplies as well as tents and Red Crescent aid workers, Iran’s deputy ambassador Rasai Ebadi told The Associated Press. It came a day after rebel Houthi representatives signed an agreement in Tehran to set up 14 direct weekly flights between the two countries.
The move underscored how the rebels, who are widely suspected of being backed by Iran, are strengthening their grip over state institutions and exercising sovereign power in Sanaa even as the country’s president insists he is still in charge after fleeing to the south.
Western embassies shut down and evacuated staff from Sanaa last month after the rebels stormed the presidential palace and placed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his Cabinet ministers under house arrest. Hadi, who still claims to be the country’s ruler, later managed to flee to the southern city of Aden.
Associated Press
