IS abducts 300 workers

Mass kidnapping near Damascus as new peace talks loom

BEIRUT: In a brazen assault near the Syrian capital, Islamic State militants abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported as fighting elsewhere in the country also worsened.

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

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”.

State TV said yesterday’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 that there has been no success in efforts to establish contact with any of the workers.

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.

No further details of the abduction were immediately known and there has been no claim of responsibility yet. 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 IS militants raged in northern Syria yesterday.

Syrian opposition fighters have advanced on IS strongholds, including the IS-held town of al-Rai in northern Aleppo along the border with Turkey.