ISIL blows up Syrian church: state news agency

BEIRUT - Reuters

AP Photo

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) insurgents blew up an 80-year-old church in Syria's northeastern province of Hassaka on Easter Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said. 

SANA, which did not report any casualties, said the militants had planted explosives inside the Church of the Virgin Mary in Tel Nasri, an Assyrian village in an area where Christian and Kurdish militia have been battling ISIL. 

ISIL controls the village, the news agency said on April 6. 

The militant group, which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, espouses a fiercely purist school of Sunni Islam, deeming many other Muslims to be heretics. Its fighters have destroyed Shi'ite and Sufi religious sites and also attacked churches.