Amid conflicting accounts, Amnesty Worldwide referred to as for the discharge of detainees from the city of Qaryatain, 45 miles southeast of Homs, the provincial capital.
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Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said those abducted were wanted by IS for “collaborating with the regime”.
As many as 230 people are missing, including followers of the Syriac Orthodox or Syriac Catholic churches.
Osama Edward, director of the Christian Assyrian Network for Human Rights in Syria, said about 60 Christians were initially taken but about half of them were released and had made it to nearby villages.
According to a Syrian Christian who lives in Damascus but is originally from Al Qaryatain, the town’s Christian population had dropped to 300.
Families who tried to flee or hide were tracked down and taken by the jihadis, he said.
ISIS has treated Christians harshly in other places under its control.The group follows its own extreme version of Sunni Islam and has previously ordered Christians to convert, pay jizya (a religious levy), or face death.
Islamic State additionally holds hostages for ransom or potential prisoner change.
Bishop Audo said the latest abductions from the town of Qaryatain are part of a strategy by the so-called Islamic State group to show their power and military dominance and “spread terror everywhere”. In Might, Islamic State forces overran the Homs metropolis of Palmyra, website of well-known Roman-era ruins. The vital artery also links the two major cities to government strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. That mass abduction coincided with an offensive in the same region by Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes.
An army statement said its forces had targeted “terrorist outposts” in the area and killed scores of militants.
Militants from the self-titled group Islamic State have taken control of a strategic town in central Syria.
Syrian army soldiers and fighters of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah purged the Takfiri militants from the Hay al-Za’atoot neighborhood of the southwestern city of Zabadani, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported Wednesday.
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Particular correspondent Bulos reported from Amman.
