Terror group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children

Beirut : Daesh (IS) group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their villages last week in Syria’s southern province of Sweida, a monitor said yesterday. More than 250 people were killed on Wednesday when Daesh carried out a string of suicide attacks and shootings in the provincial capital Sweida and villages to the north and east.

“At least 36 Druze women and children were abducted after the attacks,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria. Four of the women had since managed to escape and another two had died, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

Another 17 men from the areas targeted by Daesh were still unaccounted for, but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped, he said. Both the Observatory and Syrian news outlet Sweida24 said 20 women and 16 children had been kidnapped. Daesh has not claimed the kidnappings, and no details on them could be found on its propaganda channels. Daesh declared a self-styled Islamic “caliphate” in 2014 across Syria and Iraq, but has since lost most of that territory.