Al-Qaida in Syria abducts prominent media activists

Syria’s al-Qaida 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 6.55am 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 media.