Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch seize citizen journalists

Two of the best-known Syrian “citizen journalists” have been arrested by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda branch that is playing an increasing role in the non-Isil opposition to the Assad regime.

Raed Fares and Hadi Abdallah ran a radio station, known as “Radio Fresh” from the town of Kafranabel, in rebel-held north-west Syria.

They were well-known for their appearances in regional and western media, and because of the Kafranabel activists’ weekly posters, written in English, calling for freedom from the Assad regime which often contained witty satirical comments on current international news events.

A statement from Radio Fresh said Jabhat al-Nusra fighters had entered the activists' offices in the town on Sunday morning and taken Mr Fares and Mr Abdallah away.

“Jabhat al-Nusra ‘occupied’ the offices and burned the revolutionary flags,” the statement said.”They confiscated everything there, including the radio and broadcast equipment and electricity generators.

“When asked why they were doing this, they kept repeating, ‘we don’t want the media’ over and over again.”

The two leaders were released after 12 hours on Sunday night, the station said in an update.

Another activist in the office said he had been made to walk over the revolutionary flag - striped in green, white and black - as an insult. Jabhat reject the revolutionary flag as nationalist and uses its own version of the black jihadist flag.

Jabhat al-Nusra has had a mixed relationship with other elements of the opposition to the Assad regime. It collaborates closely with them on the battlefield, and is in an alliance with one of the most powerful Islamist groups, Ahrar al-Sham, which is supported by western allies Qatar and Turkey.

It has occasionally fought pro-democracy militias fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, but at other times has co-operated with them and allowed pro-FSA, liberal activists and journalists to carry on working.

Sources close to the Kafranabel activists say that Mr Abdallah had fallen out with Jabhat after he was one of a number of local journalists to interview its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

However, the attack on independent journalists who might challenge Jabhat is also an indication of a possible major fracture in the rebel movement, triggered by the international powers’ determination to force their favoured sides in the war into peace talks.

Most FSA groups and even hardline Islamist groups like Ahrar al-Sham and the main Saudi Arabia-backed militia, Jaish al-Islam, have agreed to attend. But Jabhat al-Nusra have not been invited, and both the West and Russia have made clear that in the event of a peace settlement the rebel groups will be expected to co-operate in expelling both Jabhat and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from the country.

Meanwhile, Jaish al-Islam has also been uneasy about the talks, particularly since its leader, Zahran Alloush, was killed in an air raid conducted by either regime or Russian war-planes.

A statement from Jaish al-Islam on Saturday referred to the current siege of the rebel-held town of Madaya, west of Damascus, and the images of starving people there that have emerged in recent days.

It said that it was “unacceptable” to talk about a political settlement while people were being starved, and that supplying the rebels with anti-aircraft missiles was "best way to force the regime to accept the solution and stick by it".