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Syrian rebels exchange fire with regime troops near location of UN hostages UN hostages freed in Syria
(about 3 hours later)
Syrian rebels and regime forces have exchanged gunfire near a village where UN peacekeepers are being held hostage. Twenty-one United Nations peacekeepers captured by Syrian rebels and held for three days in a southern village have crossed safely into neighbouring Jordan.
UN officials said rescue efforts would resume on Saturday after a planned mission was called off on Friday because of shelling by Syrian army forces in the area. The Filipino peacekeepers were taken to the border by the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade on Saturday. It was about 6 miles south of the village of Jamla where they had been held since being captured on Wednesday.
The UN force has been monitoring an Israeli-Syrian ceasefire for 40 years without incident. The Filipino peacekeepers, who were taken on Wednesday, are being held in the basements of several houses in the village of Jamlah, below the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. "They are all on the Jordanian side now and they are in good health," said Abu Mahmoud, a rebel who said he had gone into Jordan with them.
The peacekeepers were taken by a rebel group calling itself the Martyrs of the Yarmouk Brigades. In the days leading up to the abduction, rebel fighters had overrun several Syrian military checkpoints in the area. In Damascus, Mokhtar Lamani, a representative of the UN-Arab League mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, confirmed that the men had entered Jordan.
Rebels initially said they would only release the hostages if Syrian forces withdrew from the area. The group was part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) that has been monitoring a ceasefire line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights since 1974. After their capture insurgents described them as "guests" and said they would be freed once President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from around Jamla and stopped shelling the area.
However, Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said the rebels apparently have dropped that demand. A brief truce was agreed on Saturday morning to allow for the peacekeepers' safe passage. Although the two-hour ceasefire ended at midday, before the men could be moved, the relative calm prevailed long enough for them to be taken south to Jordan.
The UN's head of peacekeeping, Hervé Ladsous, urged regime forces on Friday to refrain from retaliation against the village if the UN troops are freed. A rescue attempt on Friday was delayed by heavy bombardment and abandoned after nightfall, the UN peacekeeping chief, Hervé Ladsous, said.
"As of now, there is perhaps a hope, but I have to be extremely cautious because it is not done yet, but there is the possibility that a ceasefire of a few hours can intervene which would allow for our people to be released," he said after briefing the UN security council.
The rebels have posted several videos showing the hostages, apparently to show they are being treated well.