Middle East

Islamic State abducts 300 cement workers northeast of Damascus

State TV says mass abduction took place in area where recent surprise attack launched

Islamic State (Isis) militants have abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported. File photograph: Reuters

Thu Apr 7 2016 - 17:08

Islamic State (Isis) militants have abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported as fighting elsewhere in the country worsened.

State TV said Thursday’s mass abduction of workers from the al-Badia Cement Company took place in Dumeir, an area where militants launched a surprise attack against government forces earlier this week.

State-run news agency Sana quoted a source in the company as saying there had been no success in efforts to establish contact with any of the workers.

Upended buses serve as obstacles to snipers in Aleppo’s rebel-controlled Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, Syria, April 6th, 2016. Islamic State militants have abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, it has been reported. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

Syria’s State TV said Thursday’s mass abduction of 300 workers from the al-Badia Cement Company took place in Dumeir (above top right), an area near Damascus where militants launched a surprise attack against government forces earlier this week. Satellite image: Google Street View

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syria conflict, said earlier in the day that contact was lost with dozens of workers in Dumeir.

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No claim of responsibility

No further details of the abduction were immediately known and there has been no claim of responsibility. Mass abductions have taken place on occasion in Syria during the country’s devastating civil war, now in its sixth year - most often of religious minorities such as Christians.

The abduction came as fighting with Isis militants raged in northern Syria on Thursday. Syrian opposition fighters have advanced on Isis strongholds, including the town of al-Rai in northern Aleppo along the border with Turkey.

Meanwhile, the UN special envoy for Syria said the next round of peace talks in Geneva was expected to start next week, around April 13th.

Staffan de Mistura said the new round should focus on a political process that he hoped would lead to a “concrete or real beginning of a political transition”.

Mr de Mistura told reporters in Geneva he is embarking on a tour that will take him to Damascus and the Iranian capital of Tehran and possibly also the Jordanian capital, Amman, in search of an understanding about what could be a framework of a political transition.

‘Proximity talks’

Two rounds of “proximity talks” involving Syrian opposition and government representatives in Geneva have ended without any progress on ways to end the war in Syria.

Earlier on Thursday, Jan Egeland, Mr de Mistura's humanitarian aid adviser, said he is "disappointed" with recent efforts to get aid convoys into hard-to-reach and besieged areas, and called on the government to "live up to its promises".

Also speaking in Geneva, Mr Egeland told reporters that “April was supposed to be our best month” but that aid delivery is “not getting better and better, it’s actually slowing down”.

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