Members of Islamic State’s ‘Religious Police’ Kidnapped in Syria

Members of the Islamic State’s “religious police force” have been kidnapped, the BBC reports, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

According to the Observatory, members from the group – known as Hisbah – were ambushed and abducted by known gunmen in the eastern city of Mayadin.

The kidnapping comes a day after reports that the force’s deputy “emir” had been killed by unknown attackers in the same area.

The severed head of the senior figure in the Islamic State’s self-declared police force was found with a cigarette in his mouth “with a mocking reference to the fact that smoking is a sin in the eyes of the religious police.”

ISIS has seized large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory, and is known for confiscating tobacco products and carrying out beheadings and torturing those who violate its strict reading of Islamic law.

“There is an escalation in the operations against the Hisbah because they are arresting people and insulting their dignity for reasons like smoking,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP news agency.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Warns Terrorism Will Haunt West

In an interview on Wednesday, President Bashar al-Assad warned that terrorism would come back to the haunt the West, the LA Times reports. The newspaper describes Assad presenting himself “as a staunch patriot who was fending off meddling by the West.”

“The West uses any element, even if it is against them elsewhere,” Assad said to the pro-government Syrian channel al-Ikhbariya. “They fight al-Qaida in Mali and they support it in Syria and in Libya, but the West doesn’t know – or perhaps it knows but is not now aware – that this terrorism will return to it and they will pay the price later in Europe and the United States.”

The U.S. and its European allies have been reluctant to give support to Syrian rebels out of fear that weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists.

Assad also warned that the war against his regime risked spreading to neighboring Jordan. Jordan is reportedly aiding Syria’s opposition militarily by allowing “light arms to flow across its border.”

Jabhat al-Nusra Militants Blow Up 13th-Century Muslim Tomb

Jabhat al-Nusra militants have blown up a 13th-century tomb of the Islamic imam Nawawi in southern Syria, Reuters reports, citing Syrian state news agency SANA and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The mausoleum is located in Deraa province near the Jordanian province, a town that the group seized from government forces in November.

“The Nusra Front follows the same puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam adopted by the Islamic State group that has also destroyed shrines in areas of eastern and northern Syria that it controls. They see tombs as sacrilegious,” Reuters wrote.

The group deepened its foothold in northwestern Syria in November, consolidating its control over most of Idlib province, and expelling moderate rebel groups from the area.

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