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.
An Indian-origin man, who is running for a local election in Britain's West London next month, was suspended by the British Labour party as its candidate after it was found that he was embroiled in a court case.
The death of 13 Sherpas and the disappearance of three more in an avalanche on Mount Everest has brought into sharp focus the danger faced by these guides who make climbing the highest mountain in the world possible.
The Australian man who sparked a hijack scare on a Bali-bound flight from Brisbane has denied that he was drunk and thought the cockpit door was the entrance to the toilet, a media report said Saturday.
An Indian origin man has been charged with simple assault for allegedly groping a sleeping fellow female passenger for about five minutes on a flight from London to San Francisco.
