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 The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the
abductions took place when Islamic State captured 10 villages
inhabited by the ancient Christian minority near Hasaka, a city
mainly held by the Kurds, in the past three days.
Islamic State has ruthlessly targeted members of religious
minorities, as well as fellow Sunni Muslims who refuse to swear
allegiance to the 'caliphate' it has declared in parts of Syria and
Iraq.
A video released last week showed its members beheading 21 Egyptian
Coptic Christians in Libya. Last August it killed or enslaved
hundreds of Iraq's Yazidis, whom it considers devil worshippers.
The militants have previously used kidnappings to trade captives for
their own captured fighters but it was not clear if they planned to
use the same tactic with the Assyrians, whose abduction they have
not yet claimed.
The United States on Wednesday condemned the attacks on Assyrian
Christian villages, which it said included the burning of homes and
churches and abduction of women, children and the elderly.
 Hundreds of Christians have now fled to the two main cities in
Hasaka province, according to the Syriac National Council, a Syrian
Christian group.
LAND BRIDGE
The region is strategically important to Islamic State as one of the
bridges between land it controls in Syria and Iraq. In recent weeks
it has lost ground in northeast Syria after being pushed out of the
Kurdish town of Kobani in January by Kurdish forces backed by
U.S.-led airstrikes.
These same strikes, however, have been unable to stop its advance
into smaller villages.
Heavy fighting continued through Wednesday night between Syrian
Kurdish militants and Islamic State, Kurdish officials and the human
rights observatory said.
"ISIS now controls 10 Christian villages," observatory head Rami
Abdulrahman said by phone, using an acronym for Islamic State. "They
have taken the people they kidnapped away from the villages and into
their territory," he said.
Two Kurdish officials said around 90 people had been abducted. One
of the officials, Nasir Haj Mahmoud, from the YPG militia in
northeastern Syria, said they were taken to Shedadeh village, which
is Islamic State territory. "Some Assyrian villages are still under
Islamic State control," he said.
Mahmoud said YPG had cut a main road linking Tel Hamis with al-Houl,
a town just a few miles (kilometers) from the Iraqi border, and
prevented attempts by Islamic State to reopen it. "The YPG are still
in control," he said.
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He said dozens had died overnight in clashes, which underline the
emergence of well-organized Syrian Kurdish militia as the main
partner for the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State in Syria.
SOUTHERN PUSH
Islamic State fighters also launched an attack on rival insurgents
east of Damascus, the group said on social media on Thursday, a rare
skirmish near the southern capital from the militant organization,
which is strongest in the northeast.
An official Twitter account for Islamic State said its fighters
ambushed members of the Free Syrian Army, an alliance of
western-backed rebels, on Wednesday in the Eastern Ghouta area.
It said the FSA suffered casualties, and Islamic State fighters
seized tanks and ammunition in what it called a strategic location
close to the government stronghold of central Damascus. The
Observatory confirmed the attack but said it had targeted rival
jihadist brigades.
Mainstream rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's forces in
Syria's civil war have mostly been eclipsed by jihadists,
complicating a U.S. plan to train and equip Syrian opposition forces
to fight Islamic State.
Units from Islamic State are staging increasing attacks in the
south, mostly in the Qalamoun Mountain range that runs north-south
to Damascus and also borders Lebanon.
The Lebanese army deployed along that border on Thursday near the
village of Ras Baalbek and fired artillery at jihadists who move
between Syria and Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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