Nusra Front frees 8 Kurds in Syria, more than 50 still held

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Eight Kurds held prisoner by the al-Qaida affiliated Nusra Front in Syria were released Sunday after three weeks in captivity, the mediator who brokered the release told Rudaw Sunday.

Rezan Hado, a Kurdish writer and mediator, said that the eight were held together with 52 other Kurds who have yet to be freed.

“The Nusra Front released eight of the 60 detainees on Sunday who had been kidnapped by the group in Idlib province in May,” Hado said.

The Kurds had been captured on the main Afrin-Halab road in retaliation for the capture of a brother of a senior Nusra Front leader, according to Hado. 

He said that in early June, the militants freed another group of Kurdish detainees in the Syrian city of Baniyas.