ISIS ‘planning to murder 150 Christian hostages if the US does not stop its air strikes’

From the Daily Mail and CNN

Islamic State militants are planning to murder 150 Christian hostages they kidnapped after sweeping through villages in Syria if the U.S. does not stop air strikes, it has been reported. The abductions of the Christians took place yesterday after ISIS seized two Assyrian communities from Kurdish forces in the northeast province of Hassakeh.

It is thought that the militants are holding the seized women and children in houses in the ISIS-held town of al-Shadadi and using them as human shields from air strikes.

Now CNN has reported that the terror group are now planning to release a video as early as today, where they will threaten to kill the hostages if air strikes don’t stop.

Osama Edward, founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network told the station that the video will be directed to US President Barack Obama and other members of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. The video is expected to say that the hostages will be killed unless the strikes stop. 

Edward said some 35 Assyrian villages and towns had now been taken over by ISIS, forcing thousands of families to flee. Some 600 families have taken refuge in St. Mary’s Cathedral in al-Hasakah, Syria, he said Tuesday.

The Assyrians lack food, water, blankets and other necessities after years of being in the middle of a civil war.

After ISIS attacked the two villages as well as the nearby town of Tal Tamr, which remains under Kurdish control, the jihadists set fire to a church there and then installed fighters in the remains of the building, an activist network reported.