Pregnant swedish teenager held
A pregnant 15-year-old Swedish girl is being held by ISIS in Syria after running away from her foster home with her boyfriend to join al-Qaida. Swedish Foreign Ministry:
We have been informed that a Swedish minor is in Syria. We are in contact with family members,
The 15-year-old, whose name is not disclosed, disappeared from her foster home in Boras, near the south-western town of Gothenburg, on 31 May. It said she is six months pregnant. She and her 19-year-old boyfriend married in a Muslim ceremony in Stockholm earlier this year without their parents’ knowledge and reportedly travelled to Syria via Turkey, where they were recruited by an al-Qaida-linked group. The couple were captured by ISIS fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, and have been moved to an ISIS-controlled area. The boyfriend has been forced to fight for the jihadist group. The daughter had called her parents at least three times while being held by Isis after women secretly lent her a cell phone. Mother:
I spoke to her yesterday and found out she has been moved to a group of women. She is not allowed to be with her boyfriend because they aren’t considered married by [ISIS]. She was very sad and very scared. We don’t know how to get her out of the country. Now she’s in an [ISIS]-controlled area so it will be even harder.
The father says that his daughter might be moved to live with a group of women in Manbij, a town north-east of Aleppo, if ISIS militants did not recognise the marriage.
Kidnaps 230 civilians
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that ISIS abducted 230 civilians, including at least 60 Christians, in Al-Qaryatain hours after the group captured the town. Many of the Christians had fled from Aleppo province, in Syria’s north, to seek refuge in Al-Qaryatain. SOHR says those abducted were wanted by ISIS for ‘collaborating with the regime’ and their names were on a list used by the jihadists as they swept through the town. Families who tried to flee or hide were tracked down and taken by the jihadists. Al-Qaryatain lies at the crossroads between ISIS territory in the eastern countryside of Homs and areas further west in the Qalamun area.
Unidentified group kidnaps female aid workers
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.
Henning abducted
Henning is abducted 30 minutes after the aid convoy he is traveling with crosses the border from Turkey into Syria, a journey of only four miles. He had insisted on joining the convoy of former NHS ambulances delivering defibrillators, stethoscope sand oxygen to a hospital in Idlib instead of remaining at home in Eccles, Greater Manchester, with his wife and two children. Convoy organiser Kasim Jameel, a taxi driver from Bolton:
Alan is a man who is full of compassion and we are just praying to Allah that he is released safe and sound. We are liaising with the authorities and we do not want to say anything which might put him in any further jeopardy or which will inflame the situation. I could tell a lot of stories about the good that Alan has done and about how, as a non Muslim, he has helped Muslims who have suffered in the conflict. He is motivated to help others – not just by helping the convoy but by loads of other things as well. He is the nicest of nice guys who has done so much to help other people. He is just a normal bloke, an everyday taxi driver who wanted to do good. We are thinking about him all the time and praying that he will be allowed home to his family.