Hundreds of Christians flee advancing militants

BEIRUT — Hundreds of Christian families have fled a central Syrian town as Islamic State fighters advance toward it, activists said Saturday, the anniversary of the U.S. beginning air strikes against the extremists in Iraq.

A U.S.-led coalition has conducted nearly 6,000 air strikes against the Islamic State group, expanding its operations to target the extremists in Syria as well. But a year later, the Islamic State remains able to launch attacks across its self-declared caliphate in both countries, despite some gains by Kurdish fighters and allied Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, searches continued in Egypt for a missing Croatian hostage that an Islamic State affiliate had threatened to kill.

On Saturday, Osama Edward, the director of the Christian Assyrian Network for Human Rights in Syria, said “hundreds of families” have fled the Christian town of Sadad toward the government-held central city of Homs and the capital, Damascus.

Syria-based activist Bebars al-Talawy said intense clashes took place Saturday near Qaryatain, which the Islamic State group captured on Thursday. Qaryatain is about 15 miles southeast of Sadad.

Qaryatain lies in the middle of a triangle formed by the cities of Homs, Palmyra and Damascus. Activists say it has a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who earlier fled Homs.

Sadad was captured briefly in 2013 by members of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, and was retaken later by government forces.

“People are living in fear in the area,” Edward said. He said many Christians around Sadad fear what happened to ethnic Yazidis in Iraq and other Christians in Islamic State-controlled territory could happen to them: choosing between fleeing, converting to Islam or facing death. The threat to Yazidis in Iraq prompted President Obama to begin U.S. air strikes targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq on Aug. 8, 2014.

Activists said the Islamic State group abducted 230 residents, including dozens of Christians, from Qaryatain in recent days.