Jihadists in Syria were behind the kidnapping of seven aid workers in the northwest of the country, a monitoring group said Monday, shortly after four of them were freed.

 

"The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS] has freed... International Committee of the Red Cross workers they abducted yesterday on the road linking Saraqeb and Sirmin" in Idlib province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

 

The ICRC on Monday said three of its staff as well as a volunteer with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had been released and were safe, but did not say who was thought to have been behind the kidnapping.