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.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written to South Korean President Park Geun-hye expressing condolences over the sinking of the ferry "Sewol" in which at least 14 people were believed drowned.
Anil Kumar, an Indian-American surgeon and small business owner in Michigan has filed papers as a Democratic candidate in the race for the US House of Representatives from the state's 11th Congressional district.
New York Police Department has disbanded a controversial surveillance unit started after the September 11, 2001, attacks to catalogue information on Muslim businesses and mosques across the New York region.
After facing embarrassment over posting a obscene pornographic image on Twitter in response to an unhappy customer Monday, US Airways finally apologised for the error later in the day.
