Italy

The Italian foreign ministry confirms that two female aid workers have been kidnapped in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. It says contact with Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, is currently ‘impossible.’  Il Foglio newspaper journalist Daniele Raineri of is reported to have been taken hostage along with them but managed to escape, and says that they were abducted on Aug. 1 and taken to the town of El Ismo, west of Aleppo, where they were transported to the home of the head of the local ‘Revolutionary Council’. The kidnappers have yet to be identified but investigators are quoted as saying they believe it is a group that has previously taken Western journalists and activists hostage.