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.
Breaking her silence over the scandalous affair in the 1990s with Clinton - which led to the then president's impeachment by US Congress - with an unmistakable reference to the dress stained by presidential indiscretion, she also says: "I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton."
Russia Tuesday ruled out holding a fresh round of talks in Geneva for defusing the Ukraine crisis and refuted the US military's concerns that the activity of long-range warplanes over the Pacific is linked to Ukraine.
An Indian man was fined 2000 dirhams (about $545) by a Dubai court after being spotted in a UAE armed forces officer's dress that he wore to a Halloween party, a report said.
The South African government Tuesday appealed to the global community, the African Union (AU) and the Nigerian government to do whatever they can for the release of over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram, a Nigerian radical group.
New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key Monday ruled out testing legal drugs, including synthetic cannabis, on animals, days after parliament banned the drugs' sale until proven as low-risk.
