ISIS kidnaps 90 Christians from Assyrian villages

ISIS has kidnapped at least 90 Christians - mainly women and children - from their homes after launching dawn raids on Assyrian villages.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "The ISIS fighters bust past a few men guarding the village of Tal Shamiram around 4 a.m. (9 p.m. ET Monday) and abducted children, women and the elderly," said Usama Edward, the founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network to CNN. More than 3,000 people have fled their homes during the attack and are now without homes.

The attacks follow Syrian Kurdish militia's launching of two offensives against the militants, with the assistance of US-led airstrikes and Iraq peshmerga, according to Reuters.

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"At least 14 IS fighters died in the offensive, which involved Assyrian fighters, and eight civilians were also killed in heavy shelling by the Kurdish side which seized several Arab villages from Islamic State control," a monitoring group said to Reuters.

According to Daily Mail, ISIS has demanded a prisoner swap with the Kurdish fighters. But the fate of those kidnapped Christians is currently unknown.

"Land lines have been cut, their mobiles are closed,' an Assyrian woman from Tal Shamiram who now lives in Beirut stated to the Associated Press. "Have they been slaughtered? Are they still alive? We're searching for any news."

These terrifying events come less than a month after ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped from Libya.

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