The Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday released 19 Christian Assyrians they had kidnapped last month, a monitoring group reported.
The 19 people are the first batch of 29 Assyrians the sharia court of the IS exonerated on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, Xinhua reported.
On February 23, the IS abducted 220 Christian Assyrians during an assault it had waged on predominantly Assyrian areas, mainly in the area of Tal Tamr and its countryside in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
The fate of the other abductees is still unknown amid reports that the rest of the Assyrians are awaiting trials in the IS courts.
There is no clear reason why would the IS even put the Assyrians on trial.
Also on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said the Syrian troops captured as many as 33 towns in the eastern countryside of Hasaka after clashes with the IS.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal Monday described as "provocative and a brazen interference in the religious affairs of the Sikh community" the action of the Congress government in Haryana in getting a law enacted to set up a separate body for Sikh shrines in that state.
Hundreds of Indian Muslim youth, mostly from poor and vulnerable backgrounds, are lining up for visas at the embassies of some of the Gulf and Middle East nations with the aim of joining the 'jehad' in Iraq, according to diplomatic sources.
Israel should protect itself from militant's rockets but must show restraint to not further fuel "a highly sensitive situation in the Middle East", French President Francois Hollande said Monday.
The ISIS in Iraq is influencing Pakistani militants, with at least one group declaring allegiance to the insurgents, a Pakistani security analyst has said.
Israeli navy commandos raided Gaza in a first ground assault on the strip Sunday, stepping up its six-day offensive even as the UN called for a ceasefire between the two sides.
The expanding Shia-Sunni conflict in the Muslim world is exposing vast gaps in popular understanding of the schism. For example when Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, the Tunisian strongman was ousted, people thought a Shia dictator had fallen. From this they extrapolated that the Arab Spring was an anti-Shia plot.
