Islamic State releases six of 27 Druze hostages held in southern Syria: monitor

BEIRUT: The Islamic State group has released six of 27 Druze hostages it seized during a deadly July attack in Syria's Sweida province in exchange for a prisoner swap and ransom, a monitor said Saturday.

"Two women and four children from the province of Sweida were released last night," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor group, told AFP.



He added that the releases were the "first wave" and part of an agreement sealed with the Syrian government to exchange all the hostages for "60 Islamic State prisoners held by the regime and a ransom of $27 million."



Earlier in July, The Islamic State group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their village last week in Syria’s Sweida, residents of the southern province and a monitor said.

Sweida, which is mainly government-held and populated with members of Syria’s Druze minority, had been largely insulated from the conflict raging in the rest of the country since 2011.

But on Wednesday, a string of suicide blasts and shootings claimed by Islamic State left more than 250 people dead in the provincial capital and nearby villages, most of them civilians.