Sunni militants stormed a church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday and kidnapped two priests and a nun, witnesses said. Militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group have in recent weeks seized large parts of northern and western Iraq, including Mosul, as well as a string of towns stretching south towards Baghdad. According to Iraqs most senior Christian leader, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, there were about 1.2 million Christians living in Iraq before 2003. Today there are, at most, 500,000. Two nuns and three orphans have been missing since Tuesday in militant-held areas of the northern province. Meanwhile, in Baquba city, at least 13 people were killed in shelling and clashes between ISIL insurgents and Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the city, which is located 60 kilometers north-east of Baghdad, dpa reports. Islamists destroy religious shrines and historical heritage of Iraq According to refugees, extremists have demolished several religious shrines with bulldozers and burned down historical monuments, including mosques. Gunmen from the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq, are obliterating Muslim shrines and mosques. Reported by the Iranian Press TV channel, informs TASS. The report cites evidence given by refugees who escaped from the northern province of Nineveh, controlled by extremists. Those, who managed to escape, say that the terrorists crushed a number of religious shrines with bulldozers and blew up historical monuments, including mosques. Islamists have also seized two Orthodox churches, and taken down the crosses from the domes, replacing them with black flags. A few churches in the path of the bandits have been leveled to the ground. In their statement, addressed to believers, ISIL urged the destruction all the religious and historical sites in Iraq, said Press TV. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a Sunni jihadist group fighting in Iraq and Syria, is declaring an Islamist caliphate in the two countries, in an unconfirmed audio clip on Twitter. Spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani says in the recording that ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the first caliph of the self-described state, and all Muslims are obliged to swear allegiance to him....click on link to read rest of story. Read more: voiceofrussia/news/2014_07_06/ISIL-militants-storm-church-kidnap-priests-in-Iraqi-Mosul-5146/
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:29:31 +0000
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