Islamic State Seizes 21 Kurdish Villages in Northern Syria

Islamic State militants seized 21 villages and surrounded a Kurdish city in Northern Syria on Thursday.

The major offensive by the Islamic State militants prompted commanders to request for military aid from other Kurdish groups in the region.

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the Islamic State militants captured a group of villages near the city of Ayn al Arab, called Kobani in Kurdish.

The Observatory said that the Islamic State has seized 21 villages in the last 24 hours.

"We've lost touch with many of the residents living in the villages that ISIS (Islamic State) seized," Ocalan Iso, deputy head of the Kurdish forces in Kobani said, reports Reuters.

Iso said that the militants were conducting massacres and kidnapping women from the newly captured areas. He also gave the names of 28 members of a family he knew that the Islamic State has captured.

Redur Xelil, spokesman for the YPG, the main Kurdish armed group in Syria, said the Islamic State had surrounded Kobani. He said that the militants were using tanks, rockets and artillery in their attack. He also asked the world powers to take action to stop the brutal attacks by the Islamic State, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile, Islamic State militants in Mosul are forcing businesses partly owned by Christians or Shiites to hand over a share of the assets to the militant group.

According to witnesses, militants visit shops to investigate the religion of the owners and tell them to give the shares of absentee owners to the group.

 "This is done verbally by small units who stop at every shop, business and market," a business owner said. "They are giving us very little notice to hand over those assets and are telling us: 'If you don't comply, we will seize everything you own," he said, reports The Blaze.

Most of the Christians of Mosul left the city after the Islamic State warned them that they either need to convert or pay special protection tax known as Jizya. Failure to comply with any of the two options, will result in death. They also burned and plundered the churches in the area, reports The Blaze.