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.
Samples taken from sewage from different parts of Karachi and Lahore, the country’s most populated cities, have tested positive for the polio virus, officials said Tuesday.
German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has been investigating a letter with suspicious powder, which was addressed to Germany's former vhancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other politicians, Xinhua quoted German newspaper Bild as saying Tuesday.
As exit polls suggested that the Narendra Mod- led Bharatiya Janata Party was set to win the Indian election, President Barack Obama said the US looked forward to "working closely" with India's next administration.
In response to allegations by former cricketer and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party chairman Imran Khan, Jang Group managing director Shahrukh Hassan has said that the PTI chairman himself has been in favour of the "Aman ki Asha" project, media reported Monday.
At least 15 people were killed and 30 injured in a stampede that occurred during a football match in Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) capital city of Kinshasa, media reported Monday.
