Russia talking to Daesh to free Druze abductees

Syrian regime ally Russia is negotiating with Daesh (ISIS) over the release of Druze women and children kidnapped by the militants, a Druze religious leader said Friday.

On July 25, Daesh carried out a series of attacks in the southern province of Swaida that killed more than 250 people, mostly civilians.

It was the deadliest attack ever to target the mostly government-held province and the secretive Druze religious minority that populates it.

The militants also abducted 36 Druze women and children from a village in Swaida’s east, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group.

It said four women had since escaped while two had died, leaving 14 women and 16 children in Daesh captivity.

Top Druze religious leader, Sheikh Yussef Jarbua, told AFP that Russia was in talks with the militants over their release.

“The Russian side is carrying out negotiations in coordination with the Syrian government,” Jarbua said.

Daesh “planned to take captives to put pressure on the Syrian state and implement specific demands,” he said.

Jarbua did not detail the demands, but the Observatory says Daesh is seeking the release of militants captured by the regime in the neighboring province of Deraa.

Daesh fighters once held a patch of Deraa known as the Yarmouk Basin, but regime forces have in recent weeks ousted them from all of the towns and villages there.

Syria’s state media says regime troops are pursuing the last remaining militants who fled to nearby valleys.

Since Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015, it has helped the regime retake swathes of territory militarily but has also negotiated rebel surrenders on its behalf.

Daesh has not claimed the kidnappings but local sources say the families have been sent photos and videos of their loved ones via Whatsapp.

Jarbua urged the “international community and the United Nations to help us free the hostages and exert pressure so civilians are not used as human shields”.

“The families of the captives are terribly sad and sick with worry,” he said.

Activists from Swaida have expressed concern over reports that one of the women, captured by Daesh with her four children, had given birth to her fifth child in captivity.

The militants had called the women’s relatives to tell them she had given birth, according to Nour Radwan, who heads news outlet Swaida24.

Relatives confirmed the woman was nine months pregnant when she was kidnapped during Daesh’s rampage last week, which also killed her husband, Radwan said.

Swaida24 said the oldest woman abducted was 60.

Swaida had until last week largely remained isolated from Syria’s seven-year conflict.

Druze, which made up three percent of Syria’s population before 2011, are considered Muslim but Daesh see them as heretics.