Islamic militants have taken over a monastery in northern Iraq -- one of the country's best-known Christian landmarks -- and expelled five resident monks, the AFP (Agence-France Presse) website reports today (July 22, 2014).
Islamic State (IS) fighters stormed Mar (Saint) Behnam, a fourth century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic Church near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh on July 20, sources said.
"You have no place here anymore; you have to leave immediately," a member of the Syriac clergy quoted the Sunni militants as telling the monastery's residents. He said the monks pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monastery's relics, but the fighters refused and ordered them to leave on foot with nothing but their clothes.
The incident was the latest move by the Islamic State -- which last month declared a "caliphate" straddling large regions of northern Iraq and Syria -- to threaten a Christian presence in the area spanning some 2,000 years.
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