ISIL kidnaps over 200 in Syria's Homs, activist group says

Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have abducted scores of people, including several Christian families, after seizing a strategically located town in the central Syrian province of Homs, an activist group has said.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Friday that at least 230 people had been kidnapped, including 60 Christians, some of whom were taken from a church in Qaryatain, which was captured overnight after heavy fighting with the Syrian army.

Qaryatain is near a road linking the ancient city of Palmyra to the Qalamoun mountains, along the border with Lebanon.

ISIL started the attack Wednesday morning when three suicide bombers targeted pro-regime checkpoints at entrances to the city, the observatory said. Clashes erupted between the fighters and “pro-regime forces and loyalist fighters,” said SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

A total of 37 regime soldiers and loyalist fighters were killed, while 23 ISIL fighters also died, Abdel Rahman said.

ISIL has killed members of religious minorities and Sunni Muslims who do not swear allegiance to its self-declared “caliphate.” They also consider Christians to be infidels, and have destroyed many churches and Christian shrines in Syria, demanding that Christians living under its rule pay a tax known as the jizya.

Last February, the group abducted at least 250 Assyrian Christians, many of whom were children and women, during raids on villages in northeastern Syria, in a mass abduction coinciding with an offensive in the same region by Kurdish forces. The fate of many of these civilians is unclear, as is that of a number of priests who went missing and are believed to be held by the group, according to Christian groups.

The ongoing clashes between government troops and ISIL in Homs are one of many fronts in Syria's war, which has left more than 240,000 people dead since it began in March 2011, according to the SOHR.

The latest toll compiled by the observatory showed that 11,964 children were among the 71,781 civilians killed in Syria. At least 88,616 regime forces were killed — or about one third of all deaths documented by the SOHR.

Wire services