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BAGHDAD, July 18 (UPI) -- The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria distributed leaflets to Christian leaders in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul this week, threatening violence if they don't convert.
Christians who do not accept Islam or fail to pay extra taxes to the Islamic Sharia courts, the letters warned, will face "death by the sword."
Christians who do not agree to ISIS demands were also given the option to leave Mosul. According to a message from ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, non-complying Christians were permitted to "evacuate themselves only from the caliphate state" by 12 p.m. local time on Saturday or their "only option is the sword."
The Arabic letter "n" (inside red circle), signifying "Nasarah" (Christian), on a Christian home in Mosul.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) is killing, kidnapping, and threatening religious and ethnic minorities in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Since capturing Mosul on June 10, 2014, the armed Sunni extremist group has seized at least 200 Turkmen, Shabaks, and Yazidis, killed at least 11 of them, and ordered all Christians to convert to Islam, pay “tribute” money, or leave Mosul by July 19.
ISIS has also targeted Iraqi police and security forces, many of them Shia, ordering them to “repent” at designated mosques in Mosul and the nearby city of Tal Afar for following state law rather than Sharia (Islamic law), or face death. Under that threat, hundreds of security officials and soldiers have “repented,” local residents told Human Rights Watch. But a relative of one Mosul policeman told Human Rights Watch that he fled instead after learning that two of his fellow police officers, both Shia, were found dead in late June in Mosul even though they had “repented” a few days earlier.
it is saying each one is worth as much as the next.