By Ahmed Rasheed and Maggie Fick BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Ancient Christian community of the **rthern Iraqi city of Mosul had all but fled by Saturday, ending a presence stretching back nearly two millennia after radical Islamists set them a midday deadline to submit to Islamic rule or leave. The ultimatum by the Islamic State drove out the few hundred Christians who had stayed on when the group's hardline Sunni Muslim fighters overran Mosul a month ago, threatening Christians and the diverse city's other religious communities. This week the Islamic State gave any remaining Christians a final choice to make by Saturday **on: convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face the sword. A Catholic bishop from Mosul told Reuters that 150 Christian families had left in recent days and church leaders had advised the few families who wanted to negotiate with militants that they should also flee for their own safety.
07-21-2014, 11:14 AM
Ancient Christian population of Mosul flees Islamic State
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