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 body of an expatriate Indian has been lying in a morgue in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the last two years as his family members refused to claim his body, media reported Wednesday.
India's score in press freedom declined by a point, to 39, to reflect increased interference in content by media owners in the run-up to the 2014 elections, according to a Freedom House report released Thursday.
Sri Lanka has strongly condemned the twin blasts that took place at the Chennai Central railway station Thursday morning killing one woman and injuring 14 others, the country's foreign ministry said in a statement.
They have filed complaints alleging religious discrimination against a California amusement park after a couple of families wearing religious headgear were denied access to riding go-karts due to "safety concerns".
Pakistan is closely watching the unfolding parliamentary elections in India and is eager to work with whichever government come to power, its High Commissioner Abdul Basit said here Wednesday.
The US Wednesday put India and nine other countries on its Priority Watch List to highlight what it called "growing concerns with respect to the environment for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection and enforcement".
