updated Wed. April 17, 2024
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Egypttoday
March 14, 2018
Qatar's alleged funding to terrorist groups, including Al-Nusra, was estimated at $64.2 billion between 2010 and 2015, as well as $46 million that the Gulf emirate had paid in ransom for the group to release an American reporter and Maaloula nuns who were seized by Al-Nusra in Syria. Doha's support wasÃâà...
Sputnik International
December 25, 2017
Maaloula has been a well-known town in the Christian world. However, after it was seized by the Jabhat Nusra terror group (banned in Russia) in 2013, it has become known worldwide. That year nuns and the local convent's mother superior Pelagia was taken hostage by the militants. Abbas IbrahimÃâà...
CNN
May 16, 2016
Remarkably, Maaloula was spared the atrocities endured elsewhere across Syria -- the rebels even freed several nuns taken hostage as part of a prisoner exchange involving 150 women and children held by the Syrian government. The Syrian army eventually pushed the Islamist group out of Maaloula inÃâà...
Irish Times
July 28, 2015
The 14th-century Christian town of Maaloula is rising again from the ruins and rubble of eight months of occupation by insurgents determined to obliterate churches, convents and Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples. The streets of the newer quarters and narrow alleyways of the old cityÃâà...
Los Angeles Times
April 16, 2014
Maaloula never had the strategic value of other nearby areas, such as the city of Yabroud to the north, which was recaptured by the military in March. But it possesses vivid symbolic importance. The Christian enclave has long been a signature site for Syria's diverse assemblage of faiths and ethnicities.
The Independent
September 26, 2013
The Diab family can never return to Maaloula. Not since the Christians of this beautiful and sacred town saw their Muslim neighbours leading the armed Nusrah Islamists to their homes. Georgios remembers how he peered over his balcony and saw Mohamed Diab and Ossama Diab and Yasser Diab andÃâà...
New York Times
September 10, 2013
Most of the town's residents have fled, and Maaloula, one of the last places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken by Christians and some Muslims, has become a one-word argument against Western support for the rebels — at the worst possible time for Mr. Obama and the opponents of Mr.
New York Times
November 21, 2012
MAALOULA, Syria — In a country clouded by conflict, where neighbors and families are now divided by sectarian hatred, this mountaintop town renowned for its spiritual healing qualities and restorative air is an oasis of tolerance. Residents of the ancient and mainly Christian town — one of the last placesÃâà...
