Persecution of Christians

The Syrian government killed more than 100 civilians in a series of "ruthless air strikes" on a bastion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last year, Amnesty International said on March 17.
      

A mother of Chechen descent kidnapped her two children and travelled to Syria to join ISIS, according to Dutch officials.

BELGRADE - Marko Djuric, director of the Serbian government's Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM), stated that 11 years after the March pogrom, Serbs in KiM are still not free, and expressed expectation that the ones responsible for the Golgotha of Serbs will finally be punished.

Iraqi commanders were plotting a strategy for flushing out the few remaining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from central Tikrit, a city one commander said on March 14 would be liberated within three days.

Turkish Foreign Ministry on March 14 slammed the human rights report adopted by the European Parliament, saying that the report lacked historical reality and legal basis.

He might have maintained his diplomatic grace, but veteran French politician Pierre Lellouche left no room for doubt in expressing his view that there is a strong need for a rebuilding of trust between Turkey and its allies in the fight against jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

An audio message from the group's representative indicates that the Islamic State would expand further into the Middle East, into Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Islamic State (IS) has reportedly accepted a pledge of allegiance from the Nigerian insurgent movement Boko Haram.

The acceptance of the allegiance was made in an audio recording, which was posted on IS-related websites on Thursday, Al Jazeera reports.

The European Parliament has called on EU member states to recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

The EP adopted the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2013 and the EU policy on the matter on March 12.

Thousands of Iraqi forces have laid siege to jihadists holed up in Tikrit but the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) shrugged off setbacks by welcoming Nigeria's Boko Haram group into its "caliphate".
      
After making major gains in and around the city Wednesday, commanders were confident that Baghdad's biggest victory yet against ISIL was only a matter of time.