10/12/2013 18:48
Spanish journalists kidnapped in Syria
Two Spanish journalists have been kidnapped in Syria by a radical Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, the BBC reported.
El Mundo reporter Javier Espinosa and freelance photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova were seized by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis).
The newspaper said they were taken at a checkpoint in northern Raqqa province near the Turkish border.
The BBC's Paul Wood in Beirut says Isis assumes that all foreign journalists and aid workers are spies.
The high risk of kidnapping has made rebel-held areas of Syria a black hole where few foreign journalists - or aid workers - will venture, he adds.
El Mundo said the two men had been trying to leave Syria at the end of a two-week reporting mission when they were taken on 16 September.
Four members of the Free Syrian Army - the main Western-backed rebel group - who were protecting them were also captured. The four were later released.
The Spanish daily said news of the kidnapping was kept quiet while it held indirect communications with the captors, who have still not made any demands.
Hours after the newspaper announced the kidnapping, Mr Espinosa's wife spoke at an emotional news conference in Beirut, urging the journalists' captors to free them.
Monica Prieto said the pair had "travelled a dozen times to Syria to document war crimes, risking their lives, and becoming brothers with the Syrians in their fear, misery and humanitarian crisis."
"Javier and Ricardo are not your enemy. Please, honour the revolution they protected, and set them free."