By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (Worthy News)-- Christians are being targeted by Muslim rebels according to the Vatican and other sources amongst besieged Syrian Christian communities.

According to reports by the Vatican's Fides News Agency, the US-backed Syrian Army are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory.

"The picture for us is utter desolation," said Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos, a greek-Catholic Melkite Archimandrite. "The church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything."

Asked whether it was the Free Syrian Army that was telling Christians to get out, Agnes Miriam, Mother Superior of the Monastery of St. James at Qara in the Diocese of Homs, said "yes ... it was commander on the ground, Abdel Salam Harba, who decided that there was to be no more negotiations with Christians."

She said Christians refused to back the rebels, so the rebels used them as human shields.