Home Pastors Articles for Pastors ISIS Militants in Iraq Burn and Loot Churches, Scatter Thousands of Christians

ISIS Militants in Iraq Burn and Loot Churches, Scatter Thousands of Christians

Churches and monasteries throughout the northern Iraqi city of Mosul are being attacked by the Sunni group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). The group, an offshoot of al-Qaeda formed last April, is looting and burning churches throughout the city in the Nineveh province and is forcing all women to wear the Islamic veil, even Christians. Tens of thousands are flooding into the Nineveh Plain and the border crossings of surrounding countries. Thousands of Christians are among them.

ISIS militants took control of Masul on Tuesday, June 10, meeting with little resistance from Iraqi security forces. Earlier this year, the group captured the city of Fallujah in western Iraq and also control parts of the city of Ramadi. ISIS is also one of the major terrorist groups currently fighting against government forces in Syria.

Led by Abu Kakr al-Baghdadi, the group seems to have a goal of establishing an Islamic emirate in the eastern Mediterranean, according to the Christian Post.

Patriarch Sako of the Chaldean Church told the Vatican publication Fides.”We believe that the best solution to all these problems is the creation of a government of national unity in order to strengthen the control of the State and the rule of law in order to protect the country, its citizens and their property and preserve national unity.”