Iraq: Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militants capture Iraq’s largest Christian town of Qaraqosh
Jihadists took over Iraq’s largest Christian town Qaraqosh and surrounding areas Thursday and sent tens of thousands of panicked residents fleeing towards autonomous Kurdistan, officials and witnesses said.
Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militants moved in overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga troops, who are stretched thin across several fronts in Iraq, residents said.
“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 Sulaimaniyah, told AFP.
Qaraqosh is an entirely Christian town that lies between Mosul, the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq, and Irbil, the Kurdish region’s capital. It usually has a population of around 50,000.