Violence against peaceful countrymen

Islamic State (Isis) militants have abducted at least 90 people from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group that tracks violence in Syria said on Tuesday.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants carried out dawn raids on rural villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority west of Hasaka, a city mainly held by the Kurds.

Syrian Kurdish militia have renewed their assault on the militants, launching two offensives against them in northeast Syria on Sunday, helped from United States-led air strikes and Iraqi peshmerga who have been shelling Isis-held territory from their side of the nearby border.

Isis abducts at least 90 from Christian villages in Syria