Kidnapped American journalist, Peter Theo Curtis, freed Syrian Muslims
Al Jazeera reported, “Peter Theo Curtis was freed from captivity on Sunday, after reportedly being abducted in Antakya, Turkey, where he planned to enter Syria in October 2012.”
“We are all relieved and grateful knowing that Theo Curtis is coming home after so much time held in the clutches of [al-Nusrah Front], he said.
Kerry also said the US was using “every diplomatic, intelligence, and military tool” available to release other Americans held hostage.
Qatar’s foreign ministry has also issued this statement about its role in the release of Peter Theo Curtis.
“Qatar exerted relentless efforts to release the American journalist, out of Qatar’s belief in the principles of humanity and its keenness on the lives of individuals and their right to freedom and dignity.”
A video of Curtis appeared in late June to Al Jazeera. “Speaking in a video obtained by Al Jazeera, Curtis read from a prepared script stating his name and profession, saying he was a journalist from Boston, Massachusetts… Commenting on his treatment, Curtis said he “had everything” he needed and ‘everything has been perfect, food, clothing, even friends now’,” the article noted.
Foley was executed in a video, released a week ago, and another journalist was threatened as well by the ISIS sunni Muslim extremists.
Curtis was handed over in Syria’s Golan Heights to United Nations peacekeepers, who turned him over to American officials after a medical examination, the U.N. and the family said.
While they all are Sunni extremists, the Nusra Front split off from the Islamic State earlier this year, after al Qaeda’s general command disavowed Islamic State. At the time, Nusra Front supporters and analysts said the emerging brutality of ISIS was proving too extreme for al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
[…] in an IS video and threats to murder a second journalist. A third hostage, Peter Theo Curtis, has reportedly been released after nearly two years in […]