With the State Department set to make a determination on whether ISIS’s persecution of Christians in the Middle East is genocide, the terror group has released a new video showing yet more proof of their systematic attempt to eliminate an entire religious group from the region.
The new video titled “Diwan of education destroys Christian instruction books in Mosul,” shows a massive bonfire burning Bibles and other Christian literature.
While ISIS has killed, enslaved and displaced hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, the destruction of religious materials could also be part of a genocide determination.
The video first surfaced last week and shows ISIS militants piling hundreds of books with crosses printed on the cover into a large fire at an unknown location in the northern Iraqi city.
Mosul, long considered a haven for Iraq’s Christian population, was overrun by militants in 2014. After the takeover, ISIS demanded that Christians convert to Islam, pay a tax known as a jizya, or flee the city.
Although Mosul was once considered a center of Christianity in the region, all Christians are believed to be gone from the city.
“It’s another example that ISIS means what they say,” David Curry, CEO of Open Doors USA, told FoxNews.com. “That’s what makes the debate so powerful. They want elimination and they are very serious.”
“The stated purpose [of ISIS is] to eliminate and force the Christians and Yazidi people out of the region,” Curry said. “They are succeeding. The Christian population in the region has greatly diminished.”
Before the Islamic State established its caliphate, there were more than 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Now, that number has plummeted to roughly 275,000.
On Monday the House voted unanimously to label ISIS’s extermination of Christians genocide. Secretary of State John Kerry is supposed to decide on behalf of the Obama administration on Thursday whether he agrees with this declaration, but the deadline will likely be missed.
"This has always been genocide,” Curry said. “The West has realized that they cannot deny it any longer.”
But will the Obama administration?