ISIS militants seized a 4th century Catholic monastery in Mosul last week and kicked out its monks.
The monks at Mar Behnam Monastery were forced to flee the monastery on foot with only the clothes on their back.
The Mar Behman Monastery near Mosul was renovated in 1986, and is visited by thousands of Christians and Muslims yearly.
The ISIS terrorist group have removed the crosses from thirty churches in Mosul. The Islamist group converted the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Mosul into a mosque.
Ankawa.com reported:
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has removed the crosses from all 30 churches and monasteries in Mosul and converted the Syriac Orthodox cathedral into a mosque, according to the Assyrian International News Agency.
ISIL, also known as Islamic State and ISIS, took over Iraq’s 2nd-largest city in June and later ordered all Christians to leave, pay an unspecified tax, or convert to Islam. The jihadist group now controls 40% of Iraq and 30% of Syria.
According to “Caliphate of Brutality,” a front-page story in L’Osservatore Romano, ISIL’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has ordered all women and girls within its territory to undergo genital mutilation. The Vatican newspaper also reported that ISIL earlier ordered “families to give virgin girls in marriage to jihadists” and segregated universities by sex.