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.
In one of the biggest goodwill gestures to one of the largest communities in the US -- the Sikhs -- the state of Texas has allowed on-duty Sikh officers to sport essential Sikh religious symbols like beards and turbans.
Ethnic Indian Hindus in Malaysia have strongly criticised a Muslim cleric's suggestions that Prime Minister Najib Razak should not have donned a "Hindu" attire, nor should he have been garlanded at a "Hindu" ceremony, media reported Saturday.
The parents of the female US aid worker kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) refused to believe that she has been killed in Jordanian airstrikes as claimed by her captors, media reported Saturday.
Even Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and social activist Mukhtaran Mai are not being honoured in Pakistan as women still remained the most backward in the country, a leading daily said Saturday.
As President Barack Obama's comments that religious intolerance in India would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi raised a storm in India, the New York Times asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his "deafening silence."
Vowing to create a "world fit for children", India has reaffirmed its focus on the development of the girl child, ensuring her education and fighting to end discrimination.
