U.N.: 43 peacekeepers captured near Golan Heights crossing

An armed group detained 43 U.N. peacekeepers in Syria near the country's only border crossing with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early Thursday, a day after militants took the crossing from the Syrian regime, the United Nations said, according to CNN.

Those holding the peacekeepers are members of the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, one of the groups fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Israeli military official told CNN on condition of anonymity.

"The United Nations is making every effort to secure the release of the detained peacekeepers, and to restore the full freedom of movement of the force throughout its area of operation," the U.N. said in a news release.

The 43 peacekeepers, all from Fiji, are part of a U.N. operation that has been in the Golan Heights area since 1974, charged with maintaining a ceasefire between Syrian and Israeli forces since a 1973 war, the United Nations said.

They were detained Thursday morning near the Syrian town of Quneitra, the location of the border crossing that rebels had captured, according to the United Nations. In addition, 81 U.N. peacekeepers from the Philippines were being "restricted to their positions" Thursday near villages in the area, the U.N. said without elaborating.

Al-Nusra Front fighters and other Syrian rebels seized control of the Syrian side of the Quneitra crossing Wednesday -- a capture that represents a new dynamic in a war long feared not only for its deadly effects inside Syria but for threatening to widen into a destabilizing regional conflict.

Fighting appeared to continue Thursday. From the Israeli-occupied side of the Golan Heights, a CNN crew could hear intense small-arms fire coming from the old town of Quneitra around noon.

The crew also could see gunmen -- apparently rebels -- at a checkpoint on the Syrian side of the crossing. A Syrian flag that had been at the checkpoint was no longer there.

The Israeli military has closed the area it controls around the border crossing.