NBC Says Extremists Abducted News Team in 2012, Not Pro-Assad Forces

An NBC News team, kidnapped in 2012 in Syria, was abducted by Sunni militants linked with rebels fighting against Bashar Assad’s government, contrary to earlier claims by the channel's correspondent, who was among those abducted.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Richard Engel and a group of other journalists were held for five days in December 2012. They originally claimed their kidnappers were loyal to Assad, and their rescuers were Sunni rebels.

However, after contacting “dozens of sources inside and outside of Syria,” the journalists said in a statement on Wednesday that their kidnappers were actually Sunni, but had convinced the hostages that they were pro-Assad Shiite militiamen.

The NBC reporters claimed they later learned that the group that freed them had ties to the kidnappers.

In 2011, an anti-government uprising in Syria spiraled into a civil war that has claimed the lives of some 220,000 people and displaced millions, according to UN estimates.

The Syrian army has been fighting against several opposition and rebel groups, including Islamic State extremists and the Nusra Front.

The United States, which heads an international anti-IS coalition, is currently training some 15,000 Syrian opposition militants in Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as a part of its campaign against ISIL and forces loyal to President Assad.