International
Three Red Cross aid workers and a volunteer from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have been released a day after gunmen abducted them in northwestern Syria, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday.
It was the latest high-profile kidnapping in the country's civil war, between the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and opposition forces, in which more than 100,000 people have died since it began in March 2011, according to United Nations figures.
Robert Mardini, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East, said on Twitter that the four released workers were "safe and sound."
ICRC spokesman Ewan Watson confirmed to Al Jazeera that the four were released in Idlib province — the same province where a deadly car bomb exploded Monday. He said the organization was currently unable to provide details about how they were released or why they were held.
The ICRC said it still did not have any information about the three others who were abducted by unidentified gunmen as they were returning to the capital, Damascus, after a four-day mission to deliver medical supplies.
At least 39 people were killed and dozens more injured on Monday by a powerful car bomb in a busy marketplace in the main square in Darkoush — a rebel-held town in Idlib province less than two miles from the Turkish border.
The death toll was expected to rise because of the large number of people who suffered serious injuries, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. So far, there has been no claim of responsibility, Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reported. That bombing comes a day after two other suicide car bombs exploded in Damascus.
Much of the Idlib countryside and other parts of northern and eastern Syria have fallen under the control of rebels. Kidnappings have become common, particularly of aid workers and foreign journalists.
A video posted online by activists showed the aftermath of the blast, with at least one car on fire and the ground around it covered in smoking debris. A second video showed residents carrying bodies on makeshift stretchers, as well as extensive damage to buildings around the blast site.
The two car bombs in Damascus on Sunday exploded near the state-TV building. The SANA news agency said its headquarters in Umayyad Square were damaged in the blast.
A reporter for government television made no mention of any casualties, saying only that "there were some human remains at the scene, likely those of a suicide bomber."
SANA quoted one source as estimating there were about 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds, of explosives in one of the cars.
Rebels hold a number of suburbs in the outskirts of Damascus and have managed to carry out mortar and rocket strikes on central areas of the capital in recent months, although major attacks in the city center are still relatively rare.
The intensity of the conflict has not abated in the past two weeks, even as inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons press on with their work to supervise the destruction of the country's chemical arms.
The watchdog agency works to eliminate chemical weapons around the world. On Friday it won the Nobel Peace Prize in a powerful endorsement of its Syria mission, which stems from a deadly Aug. 21 attack on opposition-held suburbs of Damascus where the U.N. determined the nerve agent sarin was used.
Hundreds of people were killed, including many children. The United States said the Syrian government was responsible, while Damascus blames the rebels.
Philip J. Victor contributed to this report. With Al Jazeera and wire services.
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