Syria rebels exchange 25 women and children prisoners for commander

In a rare prisoner swap, a hard-line Syrian rebel group has released 25 women and children to Syrian government fighters in exchange for one of their captive commanders, a monitoring group said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the 10 children and 15 women were kidnapped by the Sunni insurgents more than a year ago from two Shia-majority towns in northern Aleppo province.

The deal was between the Jaish al-Mujahideen faction, a self-described Islamist coalition that fights both the Syrian regime and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and pro-government militia, the Observatory said. Kurdish fighters known as Popular Protection Units (YPG) reportedly mediated the swap.

The Observatory said the women and children were from Nubl and Zahra, two Shia villages that have been under a long siege by anti-government forces, including Jaish al-Mujahideen.

“The women and children were kidnapped between a year and 18 months ago and held by different rebels,” Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters by phone. “They were handed to Jaish al-Mujahideen to use in an exchange.”

The commander was the military leader of Jaish al-Mujahideen, who was captured in August, said Abdulrahman.

Syrian state media have made no mention of the exchange, and government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Kidnap for ransom is common in Syria but trades between opposing sides in the fighting are infrequent. More than 220,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict.

Al Jazeera and Reuters