ISIS takes Iraq's largest Christian town of Qaraqosh, Kurds retreat.

ISIS has just seized the Christian town of Qaraqosh, in northern Iraq. This came as the Kurds withdrew from the city, as well as the towns of Tel Eskof and Qaramless.

This is a worrying situation, as many thousands of Christians have now been displaced, and are in harms way.

Isis has seized Iraq’s largest Christian town of Qaraqosh causing “tens of thousands of terrified” people to be displaced as people flee the area.

The militant group captured the town in the north of Iraq overnight after Kurdish Peshmerga troops withdrew from the area.

The Peshmerga have been fighting the Sunni militants in the north for weeks, and have been stretched thin across several fronts in Iraq, residents told AFP.

Some 50,000 Christians lived in the town of Qaraqosh, which lies 19 miles to the south east of the city of Mosul, which Isis captured in June and is now its main base in the country.
The BBC reports that the French organisation Fraternite en Irak said that a majority of inhabitants of Nineveh province had fled as the militants took over Qaraqosh.

The French group said the commander of the Peshmerga in Qaraqosh told the town’s archbishop late on Wednesday that the Kurdish fighters would be leaving their posts, while they also retreated from nearby Christian towns including Tel Eskof and Qaramless.

"I now know that the towns of Qaraqosh, Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh have been emptied of their original population and are now under the control of the militants," Joseph Thomas, the Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulamaniyah, told AFP.

www.independent.co.uk...

The current situation comes as the Kurdish Peshmerga have been battling to retake the Yazidi city of Sinjar, where ISIS had previously claimed victory. ISIS' seizing of Sinjar resulted in the displacement of over 100,000 people, with an estimated 40,000 people being stranded in the regional mountains.

The USA refuses to arm the Kurds, who are stretched thin and fighting ISIS with inferior weaponry. The Kurds are regarded as one of the best trained forces in the country, and have experienced some troubles against ISIS as of late. Here's hoping things change for the better, sooner rather than later.

a reply to: daaskapital

I'm waiting for Ban Ki Moon to do his job. Appear on TV an say that this is unacceptable that is.

But I'm still confident that Russia will sort that out for good

lol, to think kurds are pro western and isis is a direct or indirect result of westerners' (and the oil kings) funding to topple governments in libya, syria, etc...

Saddam doesn't look too bad now, eh kurds?

The Kurds are a magnificent people whom I have a great deal of respect for.......it pains me to see them stretched so thin, with no assistance from the outside........
It has become obvious to me that the elites are creating the 3rd world war, just as general Pike wrote about in Morals and Dogma.....
This Caliphate is being shepherded into existence by the bankers....(through the Saudis and Quatar....)
We should be helping the Kurds with everything we have .....but they are doomed by the bankers to go down fighting alone.....
Obama has been ordered to let the only really pro USA people in the Mid East to let them be overwhelmed by these killers....
Foreign policy is a joke and a travesty.....we help our enemies and let our friends die.

Why does ISIS and Al Qaeda always attack their own people and never Israel? Either way, this group must be stopped. What they are doing is just as bad as what just happened in Gaza.

originally posted by: donhuangenaro
lol, to think kurds are pro western and isis is a direct or indirect result of westerners' (and the oil kings) funding to topple governments in libya, syria, etc...

Saddam doesn't look too bad now, eh kurds?

That's just sick, not funny in the slightest. No one would have starred your post if you had said the same thing about the Nazi holocaust..

Kurdistan was looking stronger than ever according to reports a not more than 6 months ago! What the hell happened?!

Double post