Toll in Russia raids on jail rises to 81 – Qaeda in Syria abducts prominent media activists
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BEIRUT, Jan 10, (AFP): At least 81 people, including 23 al-Qaeda fighters, were killed in Russian strikes on a prison complex run by the jihadist group in Syria’s northwest, a monitor said Sunday in a new toll. The strikes on Saturday targeted an Al-Nusra Front building near a popular market in northwestern Idlib province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The complex in Maarat Al-Numan housed the group’s religious court and a jail. The dead included 23 Al-Nusra fighters and six non-jihadist rebels who were in the building. Another 52 people — including civilians and prisoners in the complex — were also killed. At least one child and two women were among the civilians killed in the strikes. Russian warplanes have been conducting air strikes against the Islamic State organisation and “other terrorist groups” in Syria since Sept 30. Although Al-Nusra and IS are both jihadist organisations, they are fierce rivals and regularly clash in Syria. Al-Nusra also has tense relationships with non-jihadist rebel groups that oppose its extreme interpretation of Islamic law. In Idlib, it heads a coalition of Islamist and rebel groups known as the Army of Conquest which has expelled regime forces from the province. Syria’s conflict first erupted with antigovernment demonstrations in March 2011 but expanded into a war that has left more than 260,000 people dead. Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate abducted two of the country’s most prominent media activists from a radio station in the northwestern Idlib province on Sunday, opposition officials told AFP. “Al-Nusra Front kidnapped at 0655 (0455 GMT) activists Hadi al-Abdallah and Raed Fares in the offices of Fresh FM where they work and live in Kafranbel,” said Soner Taleb, head of media at the Syrian National Coalition. Fares, Fresh FM’s director, has previously been detained by Al-Nusra fighters, who disapprove of what they term the station’s “secular tendency and support of apostates”, Taleb said. According to a statement published by Fresh FM, Al-Nusra fighters stormed the radio station and confiscated its broadcasting and technical equipment as well as its electricity generators. “The Al-Nusra members then gathered all of the revolution flags and burned them in front of everyone,” the statement said.
The flag featuring three red stars over a green, white and black tricolour, in use before President Bashar al-Assad’s father and predecessor came to power, is the symbol of Syria’s uprising. Al-Nusra fighters then arrested both Fares and Abdallah, the statement said. Fares is widely known as the creator behind often humourous protest posters of Kafranbel, written in English and Arabic and widely circulated online. “Raed is the founder of Fresh FM, and he’s an amazing person,” said activist Ibrahim al-Idlibi. “He did not take up arms at all, not even for personal use … he always came up with new ideas, always strived to be better,” Idlibi told AFP via the Internet. According to Fresh FM employee Ahmad Buyush, Fares, 41, was a medical student when popular anti-regime protests began across Syria in March 2011. “Raed is the revolution, in all meanings of the word,” he told AFP. He had been arrested by Al-Nusra in the past and had survived an assassination attempt two years ago, Buyush said.
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