The Islamic State (IS) militants on Sunday released 19 Christian Assyrians they had kidnapped last month, a monitoring group reported.
The 19 people are the first batch of 29 Assyrians the sharia court of the IS exonerated on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, Xinhua reported.
On February 23, the IS abducted 220 Christian Assyrians during an assault it had waged on predominantly Assyrian areas, mainly in the area of Tal Tamr and its countryside in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
The fate of the other abductees is still unknown amid reports that the rest of the Assyrians are awaiting trials in the IS courts.
There is no clear reason why would the IS even put the Assyrians on trial.
Also on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said the Syrian troops captured as many as 33 towns in the eastern countryside of Hasaka after clashes with the IS.
More than 50 people were killed and around 50 others injured Friday when a suicide bomber ripped through a Shia mosque in Pakistan's Shikarpur district, media reports said.
Although more than half a million Sikhs live in the US, a majority of Americans are unaware of what Sikhism is and some admit wariness when seeing their Sikh neighbours, according to new study.
The person operating the drone that crashed on the White House grounds called the US Secret Service to "self-report" their involvement in the incident.
The leader of the leftist Syriza formation, Alexis Tsipras, took office Monday as Greece's new prime minister after declining to swear the traditional oath before god and vowing to uphold the constitution to President Károlos Papulias.
At least ten people have died in a fighter jet crash at a military base in Spain, the Defence Ministry said. Military officials said that the Greek F-16 jet crashed into other planes and exploded at the Los Llanos airbase in Albacete in central Spain, BBC reported.
Colombian beauty Paulina Vega Sunday night beat 87 contestants, including India's Noyonita Lodh, to win the Miss Universe 2015 crown here Sunday night.
