ISIS News Today 2015: Islamist terror group posts photos of Syrian Christian women being held for ransom
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) allegedly leaked online photos of Assyrian Christian women being held for ransom.
The women in the photos are believed to be among the Syrian Christians abducted by ISIS in February. In the three leaked photos, three women can be seen holding up a sign showing their names and the date July 27, 2015, according to Yahoo! News.
In the pictures, the kids of the women are also seen. It is suspected that the female hostages are being held for ransom. If the families of the victims do not comply with the terrorist group's demands, the kidnapped Christian women would allegedly be sold as sex slaves to ISIS fighters, Al Arabiya News reports.
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A source told Mail Online that the names seen on the photos seem to come from an Assyrian village.
"The names resemble the family names of people in a nearby village — Tel Jazire — so it is possible that these women could be from Assyrian villages, but we cannot confirm that," the unnamed source said. "These names are names you find in Assyrian villages."
In February, ISIS abducted over 250 Assyrian Christians from Syrian villages near the Kabur River. On Tuesday, the group freed 22 of the Christian hostages.
ISIS fighters have kidnapped and sexually abused hundreds of Yazidi women since last year, but Christians and Jews were usually spared. However, the group's "Research and Fatwa Department" later on released a 34-page manual that allowed them to have sex with Christians and Jews who were "captured in battle," the report relays.
A video posted last November showed the extremist group's "sex slave market" catering to ISIS fighters. The Yazidi girls are priced differently, depending on their physical features and desirability.
As of now, the theory about the ransom for the women in the leaked photos is still unconfirmed.
