{"id":17564,"date":"2018-10-06T01:25:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T01:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17564"},"modified":"2018-10-06T01:25:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T01:25:37","slug":"tunisia-extends-state-of-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17564","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia extends state of emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: The families of Druze hostages held by Daesh rallied for a third day on Friday to demand action by the Syrian regime to free them, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\nThe terrorists abducted around 30 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 from the southwestern province of Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria\u2019s Druze community of the seven-year civil war.<\/p>\n

\nOn Friday, a handful of people gathered for a sit-in at the regime\u2019s provincial headquarters in Sweida, said a reporter in the city.<\/p>\n

\nThe protests began on Wednesday, a day after families learned that Daesh had executed a 25-year-old female captive, said Nour Radwan, the head of news website Sweida24.<\/p>\n

\nThey began protesting to \u201cdemand that the government intervene immediately to free the hostages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nA protester said he was not related to the Druze hostages but had joined the sit-in to show support.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThose who are related to them are always here, and there are large numbers that come in solidarity,\u201d he said, though adding that the numbers were lower on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re demanding the return of the hostages. That\u2019s not a tall order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nNegotiations between the regime\u2019s Russian ally and the terrorists for the release of the Druze captives had stalled, but Radwan said they resumed on the first day of the sit-in.<\/p>\n

\nFootage of the protest on Thursday published online by Sweida24 showed a few dozen men and women in front of the provincial headquarters.<\/p>\n

\nThey gathered on the building\u2019s front steps around neatly lined up photographs of the missing, and a sign that said: \u201cWe demand the hostages be returned alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRegime forces have battled Daesh in the volcanic plateau of Tulul Al-Safa in the east of the province since the July attack.<\/p>\n

\nRadwan said the terrorists had demanded $1 million in ransom for each of the 27 hostages, as well as an end to the regime\u2019s offensive against them in Tulul Al-Safa and the release of 48 wives of Daesh terrorists from regime custody.<\/p>\n

\nIn the July 25 attack, Daesh killed more than 250 people, most of them civilians, in a wave of suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings across Sweida province.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"They kidnapped around 30 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 at the same time.<\/p>\n

\nIn August, Daesh executed a 19-year-old male student among the captives.<\/p>\n

\nA 65-year-old Syrian woman among the hostages also died, with her Daesh captors telling negotiators she had died of an illness.<\/p>\n

\nDaesh swept across large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, declaring a \u201ccaliphate\u201d in territory it controlled.<\/p>\n

\nBut its self-declared state has since crumbled, and in Syria the terrorists have seen their presence dwindle to parts of the vast desert that stretches from the capital to the Iraqi border and a small pocket in the Euphrates Valley.<\/p>\n

\nKurdish-led forces are battling to expel the terrorists from that pocket around the town of Hajjin in the province of Deir Ezzor. The families of Druze hostages held by Daesh rallied for a third day on Friday to demand action by the Syrian regime to free them, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\nThe terrorists abducted around 30 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 from the southwestern province of Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria\u2019s Druze community of the seven-year civil war.<\/p>\n

\nOn Friday, a handful of people gathered for a sit-in at the regime\u2019s provincial headquarters in Sweida, said a reporter in the city.<\/p>\n

\nThe protests began on Wednesday, a day after families learned that Daesh had executed a 25-year-old female captive, said Nour Radwan, the head of news website Sweida24.<\/p>\n

\nThey began protesting to \u201cdemand that the government intervene immediately to free the hostages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nA protester said he was not related to the Druze hostages but had joined the sit-in to show support.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThose who are related to them are always here, and there are large numbers that come in solidarity,\u201d he said, though adding that the numbers were lower on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re demanding the return of the hostages. That\u2019s not a tall order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nNegotiations between the regime\u2019s Russian ally and the terrorists for the release of the Druze captives had stalled, but Radwan said they resumed on the first day of the sit-in.<\/p>\n

\nFootage of the protest on Thursday published online by Sweida24 showed a few dozen men and women in front of the provincial headquarters.<\/p>\n

\nThey gathered on the building\u2019s front steps around neatly lined up photographs of the missing, and a sign that said: \u201cWe demand the hostages be returned alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRegime forces have battled Daesh in the volcanic plateau of Tulul Al-Safa in the east of the province since the July attack.<\/p>\n

\nRadwan said the terrorists had demanded $1 million in ransom for each of the 27 hostages, as well as an end to the regime\u2019s offensive against them in Tulul Al-Safa and the release of 48 wives of Daesh terrorists from regime custody.<\/p>\n

\nIn the July 25 attack, Daesh killed more than 250 people, most of them civilians, in a wave of suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings across Sweida province.<\/p>\n

\nThey kidnapped around 30 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 at the same time.<\/p>\n

\nIn August, Daesh executed a 19-year-old male student among the captives.<\/p>\n

\nA 65-year-old Syrian woman among the hostages also died, with her Daesh captors telling negotiators she had died of an illness.<\/p>\n

\nDaesh swept across large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, declaring a \u201ccaliphate\u201d in territory it controlled.<\/p>\n

\nBut its self-declared state has since crumbled, and in Syria the terrorists have seen their presence dwindle to parts of the vast desert that stretches from the capital to the Iraqi border and a small pocket in the Euphrates Valley.<\/p>\n

\nKurdish-led forces are battling to expel the terrorists from that pocket around the town of Hajjin in the province of Deir Ezzor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: The families of Druze hostages held by Daesh rallied for a third day on Friday to demand action by the Syrian regime to free them, witnesses said. The terrorists abducted around 30 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 from the southwestern province of Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}