Islamic State militants. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org– The Islamic State terror group has abducted at least 90 Assyrian Christians from their villages in northeastern Syria, a Syrian human rights groups tracking the situation said.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Islamic State abducted the Christians in raids early on Tuesday in the villages of Tal Shamiram and Tal Hermz, west of the Kurdish city of Hasaka.

Syrian Kurdish militias, aided by US-led airstrikes and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched two offensives against Islamic State fighters in northeast Syria on Sunday. Reports indicate that 14 Islamic State fighters were killed in the US airstrikes. Meanwhile, a new United Nations report released Monday said that Islamic State’s actions against minority groups in Iraq are liable to be classified as genocide.

The report said that Iraq’s minority groups—including the Turkmen, Shabaks, Christians, Yazidis, Sabaeans, Kaka’e, Faili Kurds, and Arab Shi’a—have been “systematically targeted” by the Islamic State in “what appears as a deliberate policy aimed at destroying, suppressing or expelling these communities permanently from areas under their control.”

“Many of the violations and abuses perpetrated by ISIL (Islamic State) may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide,” the report said.