Free Republic

Church bells ring out in the Iraqi town of Bartella for the first time in years. As Iraqi forces continue their offensive against the ISIS-held city of Mosul, reports and images of the re-capturing of a string of villages and towns outside the city have hit the international media. Video aired on France 24 shows a group of Christian militia fighters from Bartella, a town 13 miles east of Mosul, returning home after having been driven out by ISIS two years ago. Their first actions on entering their village? Erecting a cross, ringing the church bells for the first time...

Raeda Paulos could hardly conceal her joy when the television inside her cramped trailer showed Iraqi forces raising the national flag over a church in her hometown, a day after it was freed from Islamic State rule. "This is our church, this is where we used to pray!" she exclaimed as she watched the images at a camp for displaced Iraqis in Irbil, the Kurdish regional capital. It was also where her husband, Adil Mateh, hid when the extremists swept into Bartella, a historically Christian town east of Mosul, in the summer of 2014. He had stayed to volunteer at...