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U.N. Peacekeepers Released by Captors in Syria U.N. Peacekeepers Released by Captors in Syria
(about 3 hours later)
Forty-five United Nations peacekeepers were released from captivity on Thursday after being held by the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda for nearly two weeks, the U.N. announced. All 45 peacekeepers, from the Pacific Ocean island nation of Fiji, were “in good condition,” the organization said in a statement. BEIRUT — Forty-five members of a United Nations peacekeeping force who had been held captive for two weeks by an affiliate of Al Qaeda in southern Syria were released on Thursday “in good condition,” the United Nations said.
The group holding them, known as the Nusra Front, said earlier in the day in a video posted online that they had agreed to release the peacekeepers unconditionally. The Qaeda affiliate, called the Nusra Front, said in a video posted online before the release that it had dropped its demands for a prisoner exchange and the delivery of humanitarian aid, and that it would instead release the soldiers without condition.
Confusion had surrounded the status of the 45 captives in recent days, with Fiji announcing on Wednesday that they would be released soon, only to quickly withdraw the statement and say instead that the 45 were still being held. The captivity of the peacekeepers, all of whom are from the Pacific island nation of Fiji, highlighted the dangers that the Syrian civil war poses for international organizations that continue to operate in the region.
The Nusra Front captured the Fijians in the Golan Heights on Aug. 28, where they were serving as part of the peacekeeping mission that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the area since the 1970s. The militants accused the United Nations of failing to help the people of Syria in that country’s civil war, which has left more than 190,000 people dead over more than three years of conflict. The Fijians were serving in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, which has been monitoring the demarcation line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974. Fighters from the Nusra Front captured them last month after a coalition of Syrian rebel forces seized a crossing point on the demarcation line, defeating Syrian government forces there.
Nusra fighters also surrounded two groups of Philippine peacekeepers in their bases nearby, and exchanged fire with one of them. Both groups later fled to an Israeli-controlled zone.
In a statement issued after the Fijians were captured, the Nusra Front said that it was holding them in retaliation for what it called the failure of the United Nations to help Syrians during the civil war. In that statement, the group issued no demands for their release.
However, in the video posted online on Thursday, a ranking Jordanian cleric from the militant group, Sami al-Oreidi, said that the Nusra Front had originally wanted to trade the peacekeepers for male and female prisoners being held by unnamed “tyrants,” and for guarantees that aid would be delivered to rebel-controlled areas that are besieged by government forces in Syria.
Mr. Oreidi, who is seen in the video wearing Afghan-style clothing and standing in a grove of trees with the Fijian soldiers sitting cross-legged behind him, said that the group learned after it captured the Fijians that a Nusra Front doctor had promised safety to the peacekeepers. So the group sought the advice of a jihadist cleric in Jordan, Abu Muhamad al-Maqdisi, who told the group to respect the doctor’s promise and free them, Mr. Oreidi said.
One Fijian soldier in the video, who is not identified, said that he and his colleagues had not been harmed and were well taken care of. It was unclear whether he was speaking under duress.
Mr. Oreidi disputed previous reports that the Nusra Front had demanded that Western governments stop classifying it as a terrorist organization. He said in the video that the group had asked for no such thing, and that “jihad, combat and terrorism are praised and loved by Allah.”
Confusion had surrounded the captives’ situation in recent days. The government of Fiji announced on Wednesday that they would be released soon, only to quickly withdraw the announcement and say that they were still being held.
The United Nations said on Thursday that the Fijian peacekeepers had been released and returned to a United Nations base on the Syrian side of the demarcation line for medical assessments.
A spokesperson for Israel’s military confirmed that the peacekeepers later crossed into an Israeli-controlled zone in the Golan Heights.
A Syrian activist posted a video online on Thursday that showed the freed Fijian soldiers getting out of a van and being greeted by other peacekeepers.