Syrian rebel group claims it rescued not kidnapped, 20 U.N. observers

Bradley Secker/For The Washington Post - Young Syrians walk through the rainy Yayladagi refugee camp in southern Turkey. The number of Syrian refugees has hit 1 million, according to the U.N. refu­gee agency.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — A Syrian rebel group that claimed it had abducted a group of U.N. observers in the Golan Heights announced on Thursday that it had in fact rescued them from fighting in the area, and called on the U.N. to send a security convoy to pick them up.
 The announcement by the Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade was posted on the same Facebook page that was used to publicize the abduction on Wednesday. A video in which the kidnappers warned that the observers would not be released until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad withdrew troops from the area had been deleted, suggesting that overnight negotiations to secure the groups’ release had worked.

Syria’s refugees: U.N estimates say that within a week, there could be 1 million refugees in Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq as more people flee the Syrian civil war.

 “With God’s help we managed to secure a group of U.N. members working in the border town of Jamleh after they were victims of the criminal shelling of Assad’s gangs,” the statement said. “We request from the U.N. to send us a security convoy so that we can deliver them to the organization.”
 “We have nothing to do with any of the old statements before this one,” added the posting on the brigade’s Facebook page.
 
The rebels abducted about 20 U.N. observers from the Golan Heights on Wednesday and threatened to hold them until the Syrian government withdrew its troops from the area, marking the most serious escalation of the conflict yet along Syria’s southern border with Israel.In New York, the U.N. Security Council swiftly issued a statement blaming “armed elements” of the Syrian opposition for the abduction and demanding the “unconditional and immediate release” of all the observers.

On a day that the number of Syrian refugees who have fled the fighting officially passed the 1 million mark, the incident highlighted the danger that Syria’s spiraling conflict will spill beyond its borders and draw in not only the country’s neighbors but perhaps also the wider international community. The vast majority of the refugees have sought sanctuary in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, where they are straining resources and threatening the stability of communities that are often already volatile.

“It seems that lately some people are trying very hard in order to extend the geography of the Syrian conflict,” said Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, speaking after the Security Council session. He noted that the abduction came two days after Iraqi insurgents killed nine Iraqi guards along with 48 Syrian soldiers who had fled rebel advances into Iraq and were being escorted back to Syria when they were ambushed.

“Somebody is trying very hard in order to blow this crisis up,” Churkin said.The United Nations’ top peacekeeper, Herve Ladsous, had confirmed on Wednesday that negotiations were underway to secure the freedom of the observers, who serve as part of the U.N.’s Disengagement Observer Force monitoring the 1967 cease-fire line between Syria and Israel.“It’s a very serious incident,” Ladsous told reporters after briefing the council.According to a U.N. statement, about 20 observers on a regular supply mission to the no man’s land between Israel and Syria were detained by a group of around 30 armed fighters near a post that had been damaged in recent fighting and had been evacuated over the weekend. A U.N. official said the peacekeepers were from the Philippines.