Syria: Italian priest apparently kidnapped by al Qaeda-linked rebel group

Yahoo News UK reports that an Italian Jesuit priest who hoped to negotiate with jihadists in Syria has “apparently been kidnapped by an Islamist group” which is “a local version of Al-Qaeda”, the foreign ministry in Rome said Tuesday. “You will all understand the difficulties. We have not given up, we are still hopeful” of recovering activist Paolo Dall’Oglio, Italy’s Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told Unomattina television programme. On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it feared Dall’Oglio had been taken prisoner by jihadists in Raqa, Syria’s only provincial capital to have fallen out of regime control. Read article