IS blows 80-year-old church in Syria: report

BEIRUT:

Insurgents from the self-styled Islamic State blew up an 80-year-old church in Syria’s northeastern province of Hassaka on Easter Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

SANA, which did not report any casualties, said the militants had planted explosives inside the Church of the Virgin Mary in Tel Nasri, an Assyrian village in an area where Christian and Kurdish militia have been battling Islamic State.

Islamic State controls the village, the news agency said on Monday.

The militant group, which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, espouses a fiercely purist school of Sunni Islam, deeming many other Muslims to be heretics. Its fighters have destroyed Shia and Sufi religious sites and also attacked churches.