ISIS post pictures of Assyrian women kidnapped in Syria

Pictures believed to be of Syrian Christian women kidnapped by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants surfaced on social media this week, the Mail Online reported.

In the three pictures, three women are seen holding up a sign with their names and a date written underneath.

“The names resemble the family names of people in a nearby village - Tel Jazire - so it is possible that these women could be from Assyrian villages but we cannot confirm that,” a source at the Assyrian Federation of Sweden told the Mail.

“These names are names you find in Assyrian villages,” she added.

As to whether the piece of paper the women hold up indicate that they were being held for ransom, the source said it remains uncertain.

“It is a theory and it makes sense but we can not 100 per cent say that this will happen.”

ISIS kidnapped more than 250 Assyrian Christians from a series of Syrian villages along the Kabur River in February.

These pictures emerged with a video believed to have been shot and released by ISIS showing eight kidnapped Assyrian men.

The Assyrian Federation of Sweden said the eight were among those abducted in February.

“They state their names in the video and we have a list of the hostages so we can clearly see they are one of them,” the organization’s spokesman Afram Yakoub is quoted by the Mail Online as saying.

“No ISIS fighter appears in the video but the last man clearly says we call on the international community to secure our release but he does not say anything about ransom,” he added.