Russia, IS negotiate for kidnapped Druze

DAMASCUS - Syrian regime ally Russia is negotiating with the Islamic State group over the release of Druze women and children kidnapped by the jihadists, a Druze religious leader said Friday.

On July 25, IS carried out a series of attacks in the southern province of Sweida that killed more than 250 people, mostly civilians.

It was the deadliest attack ever to target the mostly government-held province and the secretive Druze religious minority that populates it.

The jihadists also abducted 36 Druze women and children from a village in Sweida's east, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

It said four women had since escaped while two had died, leaving 14 women and 16 children in IS captivity.

Top Druze religious leader, Sheikh Yussef Jarbua, told AFP that Russia was in talks with the jihadists over their release.

"The Russian side is carrying out negotiations in coordination with the Syrian government," Jarbua said.

IS "planned to take captives to put pressure on the Syrian state and implement specific demands", he said.

Jarbua did not detail the demands, but the Observatory says IS is seeking the release of jihadists captured by the regime in the neighbouring province of Daraa.

IS fighters once held a patch of Daraa known as the Yarmuk Basin, but regime forces have in recent weeks ousted them from all of the towns and villages there.

Syria's state media says regime troops are pursuing the last remaining jihadists who fled to nearby valleys.

Since Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015, it has helped the regime retake swathes of territory militarily but has also negotiated rebel surrenders on its behalf.

IS has not claimed the kidnappings but local sources say the families have been sent photos and videos of their loved ones via Whatsapp.

Jarbua urged the "international community and the United Nations to help us free the hostages and exert pressure so civilians are not used as human shields".

"The families of the captives are terribly sad and sick with worry," he said.

Activists from Sweida have expressed concern over reports that one of the women, captured by IS with her four children, had given birth to her fifth child in captivity.

The jihadists had called the women's relatives to tell them she had given birth, according to Nour Radwan, who heads news outlet Sweida24.

Relatives confirmed the woman was nine months pregnant when she was kidnapped during IS's rampage last week, which also killed her husband, Radwan said.

Sweida24 said the oldest woman abducted was 60.

Sweida had until last week largely remained isolated from Syria's seven-year conflict.

Druze, which made up three percent of Syria's population before 2011, are considered Muslim but IS see them as heretics.