Islamic State militants have kidnapped 230 men, women and children in Syria sparking fears they are destined for sexual slavery or mass execution. Jihadis seized the heavily populated town of Qaryatain - around 50 miles from the city of Homs - earlier this week after suicide bombers targeted army checkpoints at the entrance.
Around 230 Christians and Muslims, including 45 women and 19 children, have been kidnapped and hundreds others are missing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.The capture of the town in central Syria is the terror group's most significant advance since seizing the ancient city of Palmyra in May.
Following intense overnight fighting, the Assad loyalists were overwhelmed - allowing the terrorists to take full control of Qaryatain and prompting them to release a series of gloating images of militants posing with captured tanks on affiliated Facebook pages. This morning, Rami Abdurrahman, founder and director of the human rights observatory, told MailOnline that 230 people had been held captive.
A separate report claimed about 150 Assyrian Christians were among those taken. Diana Yaqco, a spokesman for A Demand for Action, a global initiative seeking protection for for Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs and other ethnoreligious minorities in the Middle East - said sources had confirmed that about 300 families had managed to flee the area but about 150 people had been kidnapped.
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