MESOP SHORT CUTS KURDISTAN : Jihadists seize Iraq’s largest Christian town near

August 7, 2014 – AFP – QARAQOSH, Northwest Iraq,— Jihadists took over Iraq’s largest Christian town Qaraqosh and surrounding areas on Thursday and sent tens of thousands of panicked residents fleeing towards autonomous Kurdistan, officials and witnesses said.

Islamic State (IS) militants moved in overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga troops, who are stretched thin across several fronts in Iraq, residents said. Local residents in the areas and districts of northern Mosul declared sudden withdrawal of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces after these areas were under their control since 2003. National Iraqi news reported. The residents told media “The Peshmerga forces withdrew fully from Hamdania, Ba’shiqa and Qosh and to the provinces of Duhok and Erbil of Kurdistan.

They pointed out that the armed elements are now spreading across the Hamdania, Ba’shiqa and Qosh without giving more details.  “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 which lies between Mosul, the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq, and Erbil, autonomnous Kurdistan region’s capital. It usually has a population of around 50,000.

“It’s a catastrophe, a tragic situation. We call on the UN Security Council to immediately intervene. Tens of thousands of terrified people are being displaced as we speak, it cannot be described,” the archbishop said.Tal Kayf, the home of a significant Christian community as well as members of the Shabak Shiite minority, also emptied overnight. “Tal Kayf is now in the hands of the Islamic State. They faced no resistance and rolled in just after midnight,” said Boutros Sargon, a resident who fled the town and was reached by phone in Erbil. “I heard some gunshots last night and when I looked outside, I saw a military convoy from the Islamic State. They were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greatest),” he said.