Islamic State releases 19 captives

BEIRUT. — Islamic State released 19 Assyrian Christian captives in Syria yesterday after processing them through a sharia court, a monitoring group which tracks the conflict said.More than 200 Assyrians remain in Islamic State hands, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, captives from an Islamic State advance last month that overran more than a dozen villages inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near Hasaka, a north-eastern city mainly held by the Kurds. Islamic State has not claimed any of the abductions. The Observatory tracks the conflict using a network of sources on all sides of the civil war which spiraled as security forces used violence to suppress protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in 2011. — Reuters.