American journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem and British aid worker Tauqir Sharif, both now detained by hardline Islamists in northwest Syria
American journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem has been arrested by the hardline Islamist bloc Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib Province in northwest Syria.
Abdul Kareem has been one of the most prominent foreign reporters in opposition-held Syria since 2014. He has survived several assassination attempts, including drone strikes by the US military.
The network he founded, On the Ground News, reported on Thursday that he was assaulted and taken to an unknown location by HTS. The bloc has controlled much of Idlib since defeating other anti-Assad factions in 2017.
#Idlib
HTS have arrested Bilal Abdul Kareem from Atma town in northern rural Idlib. He was assaulted and taken to an unknown location by masked HTS members.— On the Ground News (@OGNreports) August 13, 2020
There is no information on any charges. However, activists said it is linked to Tuesday’s re-arrest of British aid worker Tauqir Sharif.
Adbul Kareem highlighted the case when Sharif was originally arrested in June, and he broadcast an interview with Sharif’s wife, Racquell Hayden-Best, in which she said, “They had tortured him in prison. Because of the bail conditions put on him, he hasn’t made this public to anybody.”
The journalist said in another video, “We would like to officially ask Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, do they allow torture in their prisons? That includes all of the prisons, from the civilian prison to the political prisoners.”
Abdul Kareem has reported from the frontline as Russian-regime offensives have retaken much of the opposition territory in northwest Syria, including the protracted siege and assault of eastern Aleppo city from July to December 2016.
He has faced arrest and possible execution by the Assad regime, and says he was targeted by US missiles on five occasions in 2016 after he was erroneously placed on a US “kill list”.
In March 2017, he launched a legal challenge to block the assassination attempts.