Dana Ballout and Mohammad Nour al Akraa:Islamic State Seizes Dozens of Syrian Christians in Homs Province
http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-seizes-dozens-of-syrian-christians-in-homs-province-1438960189
The seizing of Christians came as Islamic State fighters entered the town on Wednesday, after attacking Syrian-regime checkpoints by detonating three suicide bombs, according to Islamic State media.
“We have no communication with them, as land lines and mobile lines are being cut off,” said Bishop Philip Barakat, an Episcopal vicar in Homs city, the capital of Homs province.
According to a Syrian member of Islamic State, who didn’t want to be named because of security concerns, Qaryatain is of strategic importance in that it can be used as a launching point for future attacks against the Syrian regime.
The town is made up mostly of Sunni Muslims, with a small Christian minority. It lies only 25 miles from the International Highway, a road that connects Syria’s capital Damascus with regime-controlled areas in Homs and the western coast.
Qaryatain is the third town Islamic State has seized in Homs province, after Palmyra and al-Sukhnah were captured in May.
Since then, the militants have suffered some battlefield setbacks. In addition to the recent loss of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border in July, Islamic State fighters have been stalled in their advance westward into Aleppo province, which is largely controlled by Syrian rebels, and have been pushed out from parts of Hasakah city in the northeast by the Syrian regime and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG.
Islamic State is expected to continue to try to advance on Homs, regardless of the pressure the militant group may be coming under elsewhere, say Syria observers. “After Palmyra they would want to push on and capitalize on their new territory and keep prodding a retreating, off-balance opponent,” said Aron Lund, editor of Syria in Crisis, which is published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And east Homs is a good place for them to move in.”
The taking of Qaryatain gives Islamic State access to more targets east of Homs, as well as to the mountainous Qalamoun region along the Lebanese border, where the extremist group already holds territory, he added.
Uraba Idriss, a rebel commander for the Free Syrian Army, a separate rebel outfit, said Islamic State is choosing to fight against weak government forces rather than the stronger and U.S.-backed Kurdish militias.
ENLARGE Residents of nearby villages have been on high alert as they watch fleeing families enter their towns on trucks and farm tractors. Some are traveling barefoot without belongings in hand, according to residents in Saddad, a Christian village 20 miles west of Qaryatain.
“We are preparing to leave the town,” said Sarkis, a 30-year-old Christian resident of Saddad, who didn’t want his full name for fear of his safety. “Some may be held in their homes, ISIS is not allowing people to leave any more.”
Islamic State has rounded up Syrian Christians before. In February, the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, seized a string of Christian villages in northeastern Syria and kidnapped scores of civilians in Hasakah province. The kidnappings came after Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya released a video showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.
The targeting of Christians raises questions about Islamic State’s motives in Syria, analysts said. In contrast to Christian captives in Libya or Egypt, who have been executed, Islamic State has held Syrian Christians only to release them later for ransom or a swap of prisoners.
“They know that the international community and media will be interested in a case of kidnapping Christians,” said Rami AbdulRahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “It’s all to send a message to the international community that it’s strong and no matter what the international community does, it will not affect Islamic State.”
—Raja Abdulrahim in Beirut contributed to this article.
Write to Dana Ballout at dana.ballout@wsj.com
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