Witness: Haines kidnapped by ‘professionals’

A Syrian translator for the charity that David Haines was working with says he was taken in March 2013 by ‘professional gunmen’ who targeted the vehicle in the hopes of gaining Western victims. Haines was in the final hours of a three-day tour to assess locations for new refugee camps in the north of Syria for the Paris-based Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) when he was abducted with the organisation’s Italian coordinator, Federico Motka. Details of the abduction have previously been kept secret until ISIS threatened Haines this week in a video containing the execution by beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff.