LATEST: Claimed Video — Hezbollah Beating Men Near Yabroud
THURSDAY FEATURES
State media featured video on Wednesday of President Assad visiting people who have left Adra, the town 12 miles north of Damascus taken by insurgents in December.
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As the President greets people lined up outside their apartments, one laborer tells him that his family were “imprisoned for 20 days” by insurgents. A woman says her husband was kidnapped 18 months ago — Assad promises the help of security services: “There is always hope, God willing….We will find a way (to free him).” A crying child and her grandmother say the father, mother, and two brothers in the family are missing, to which the President replies, “We will keep searching for them until we find them.”
The Syrian Red Crescent said more than 17,000 civilians fled Adra during the fighting in December. The regime claims they were evacuated to a “safe haven”. Opposition activists says 5,000 people, fleeing the shelling of the Syrian military, were held by security forces in schools and in the open air of a cement factory.
Assad tells those gathered in a hall in the complex, “We take care of every one of you and of every displaced anywhere in Syria.”
More than 2 million Syrians have left the country since the conflict began in March 2011. Another 5 million — almost a quarter of the country’s pre-war population of more than 22 million — are displaced within Syria.
Claimed Video: Hezbollah Beating Men Near Yabroud
Claimed footage of Hezbollah fighters, during the regime offensive near the city of Yabroud, beating bound and blindfolded men:
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Claimed Video: 100 Women & Children Held Hostage for 7 Months by Insurgents in Latakia
Claimed video of about 100 women and children seized by insurgents last August during their offensive in Latakia Province in western Syria:
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The insurgents are reportedly asking for freedom for 2000 detainees from Syrian prisons in return for release of the women and children.
Human Rights Watch condemned the abductions in a report last October. The Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham is suspected of being the primary group behind the kidnappings.
On Monday, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said that the regime was working diligently for the release of the women and children.
Syria Shuts Embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
Syria has closed its embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“(The) embassies…are to close because these countries have been refusing to accredit the diplomats sent by Damascus since the start of the crisis,” a diplomat said.
