Christian bishops released by Chechen rebels in Syria

Two Christian bishops kidnapped near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo were freed yesterday and arrived safely at St Elias church in the city.

Sources in the Aleppo dioceses said the city’s Greek Orthodox bishop Boulos al-Yazigi and Syrian-Orthodox Metropolitan Yuhanna Ibrahim had been held by Chechen fundamentalists.

The clerics had been on a mission to negotiate the release of two priests taken two months ago when their car was stopped and the driver killed.

The rebel Free Syrian Army condemned the kidnapping and launched a search while the government, which is not in control of the area where they were abducted, said the Chechens were attached to Jabhat al-Nusra, a group affiliated to al-Qaeda.

The bishops were the most senior Christian clerics to be abducted during the two-year conflict although both Christian and Muslim religious figures have been kidnapped and slain.

Shia versus Sunni
Meanwhile, fighting continued around the strategic town of Qusair, a hub for smuggling weapons and fighters into Syria from Lebanon, and rebels fired mortars into the Lebanese town of Hermel, where Hizbullah has deployed fighters to protect its Shia population.

Hizbullah antagonist, Sunni Salafi cleric Ahmad al-Assir has urged his followers to join Syrian rebels in a battle he called a “jihadist duty.”

On the political front, the expatriate opposition Syrian National Coalition chose as interim chief George Sabra, an Orthodox Christian and dissident communist resident of Paris.

He replaced Moaz al-Khatib, a respected Sunni preacher formerly based at the Omayyad mosque in Damascus, who resigned over the Muslim Brotherhood’s domination of coalition decision-making.

Loss to coalition
Mr Khatib, who has been highly critical of the Brotherhood and the involvement of jihadis in the conflict, was an asset as he has a constituency in Syria.

Damascus has dubbed the EU plan to buy oil from rebel-held areas of Syria “illegal” and an “act of aggression” since revenues would go to the opposition and rebels.

UN envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi has urged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad not to stand for re-election when his term ends next year and criticised both sides for rejecting the proposal for dialogue made by Mr Khatib in February.