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.
The former husband and brother of the 25-year-old pregnant Pakistani woman, Farzana, who was brutally stoned to death for marrying the man of her choice, were arrested Wednesday, a media report said.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan Monday said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was treated like a schoolboy when he visited India to attend Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony last week.
An online petition to the British House of Commons has urged the politicians to create a bank holiday for Hindu Diwali and Muslim Eid festival in the country, a media report said.
