Forces Rally to Defend Christian Town From Islamic State
Efforts are being rallied to save one of the last remaining centers of indigenous Christian presence in the Levant against a renewed jihadi attack.
Militants of the theologically based “Islamic State” have come within 3 kilometers of the Syriac Orthodox town of Sadad in western Syria, the Assyrian International News Agency reported Thursday, Nov 12.
“We are afraid that ISIS will conquer the town, which God will hopefully prevent. We would lose the center of Christianity in our diocese,” the Syrian Orthodox archbishop of Homs, Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need earlier in the week.
Faced with the prospect of another irreplaceable loss, different anti-Islamist factions have teamed up to defend the town, albeit for different reasons.
Sadad’s strategic location, 60 kilometers southeast of Syrian government-held Homs but close to the Damascus-Homs main highway, makes the town a prize for both IS to win and Assad to keep.
Sadad is one town where remnants of the language of Christ is still spoken. The Bible is said to refer to it as Zedad, or mountainside, in both the books of Numbers and Ezekiel.
The town has been under siege by IS for well over a week, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, earlier told Newsweek.
He added that more than 500 Christian fighters, joined by pro-government fighters, have travelled from across Syria to prevent the town’s fall.
IS launched an offensive against Syria’s ancient Assyrian Christian heartlands on 31 Oct. as it continues its push west towards Damascus.
In a surprise attack three weeks ago, IS took the town of Mahin, 10 kilometers east of Sadad, from government forces and ultimately advanced to a mountain about 3 kilometers southeast of Sadad itself, AINA said.
Since August, thousands of civilians have been displaced by a combination of IS advances and increased aerial and ground bombardment by Russian and Syrian government forces trying to stave off the militants, the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported.
Out of 15,000 original residents, only hundreds are left in the town, understood to be mainly defenders.
Most of those who fled Sadad travelled to towns with sizeable Christian populations, such as Fairouzeh and Zaidal east of Homs city.
Paying to Avoid Death
In October 2013, Sadad was briefly taken by Islamic fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra. Before being forced to leave, the jihadis killed at least 45 Christians, pillaging churches and houses.
Recalling the unexpected attack two years ago, Archbishop Boutros Alnemeh told World Watch Monitor: “Not so many people managed to escape. The town was taken at night while the inhabitants were asleep.”
“Among those martyred were a family of six. They (the militants) dragged them from their home. They were taken to a nearby well, where they pushed their heads down the mouth of it. They shot them one by one to the head and let their bodies fall to the bottom,” Alnemeh said.
The victims included an elderly father and mother, in their 80s and 90s, a daughter, her two children and her mother-in-law.
“The jihadists want to capture Sadad because it is a Christian town,” the Archbishop’s assistant, Rev. Luka Awad, said.
“When IS militants invaded Qaryatain, they threatened they would kill all the Christians in Sadad,” he was quoted as saying by Middle East Christian News.
Qaryatain, another Syrian town with a large Syriac Christian population in Homs province, fell to IS in August. Hundreds of Christians, both Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic, were taken captive. They were later released after being forced to pay jizya (Islamic protection money) and sign a dhimma (Sharia restrictive contract) to avoid death.
“The people of Sadad began to leave after IS took al-Qaryatain,” Osama Edward, a member of the Assyrian Human Rights Network told Syria Direct, a news project comprising Syrian and Western reporters.
Later in the month, the IS bulldozed the historic fifth-century Syriac monastery of Mor (St.) Eliane the Hermit.
