Syria Live Coverage: Regime Shelling Prevents Release of 21 UN Peacekeepers

Freed UN peacekeepers arrived in the Jordanian capital Amman today

See also Syria Feature: US, Britain, and France Train Insurgents in Jordan
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Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Opposition Leaders Cancel Trip to Washington --- Why?

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1807 GMT: Captured Governor. Claimed footage of the Governor of al-Raqqa Province, Hassan Jalili, captured last week when insurgents took al-Raqqa city, under the flag of the Islamist insurgency Jabhat al-Nusra --- Jalili is the figure on the right:

1640 GMT: Abducted UN Peacekeepers. Insurgents have freed 21 United Nations peacekeepers abducted on Wednesday, handing them to Jordanian authorities.

Mokhtar Lamani, the Damascus representative of the UN-Arab League peace envoy, said the Filipino peacekeepers crossed into Jordan on Saturday afternoon.

1302 GMT: Abducted UN Peacekeepers. An insurgent source and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claim 21 UN peacekeepers, captured by the insurgent Yarmouk Brigade on Wednesday in the Golan Heights, have been taken to the border with Jordan to be handed over to Jordanian authorities.

Abu Essam Taseel, a spokesman for the Brigade, said the UN convoy sent to retrieve the peacekeepers had been held up because of one of the vehicles broke down. However, he said a ceasefire around the village of Jamla --- which has been under regime bombardment, holding up the release --- appeared to be holding and the seven UN vehicles had retrieved the 21 Filipinos.

1052 GMT: Abducted UN Peacekeepers. Another video of Wednesday's capture of 21 Filipino peacekeepers by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade:

1050 GMT: Arms to the Insurgents. The Daily Telegraph of London posts EA's story from Friday, headlining, "US and Europe in Major Airlift of Arms to Syrian Rebels Through Zagreb":

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The United States has coordinated a massive airlift of arms to Syrian rebels from Croatia with the help of Britain and other European states, despite the continuing European Union arms embargo, it was claimed yesterday.

0620 GMT: Casualties. The Local Coordination Committees claim 81 people were killed on Friday, including 29 in Damascus and its suburbs, 16 in Idlib Province, and 13 in Aleppo Province.

The Violence Documentation Center records 51,794 deaths since the start of the conflict in March 2011, an increase of 113 from Friday. Of the dead, 41,824 were civilians, an increase of 61 from yesterday.

0604 GMT: Abducted UN Peacekeepers. Another tangled 24 hours over the 21 United Nations peacekeepers who were captured by the insurgent Yarmouk Brigade on Wednesday --- the UN and the insurgents both said that their release yesterday was prevented by regime shelling of the town where they are held in the Golan Heights.

Abu Essam Taseel, a representative of the Yarmouk Brigade, said on Friday that the convoy reached the village of Nafea, about a kilometre east of Jamla, where the 21 Filipinos were detained; however, it could not proceed because of the attacks.

Herve Ladsous said:

Our 21 peacekeepers are detained in the village of Jamla. Apparently they are safe, they have been spread into four locations within that village, in the basements of various houses. That particular village [Jamla] is subject to intense shelling by the Syrian armed forces....

There is perhaps a hope....There is the possibility that a ceasefire of a few hours can intervene which would allow for our people to be released.

EA's James Miller, with a summary of develpments, offered an assessment of the political significance beyond the immediate drama:

The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade is a group of radical Islamists. Days after executing a group of POWs in Daraa, they engaged in firefights in Jamlah. During this time, they decided to capture the UN convoy to use it as a shield against Assad in an effort to get Assad's forces to withdraw.

At this point the insurgent leadership "freaked out". They leaned hard on the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, convincing them to let the UN peacekeepers go, and persuading them to change their narrative --- the story they would use was that the Brigade took the 21 men into custody to keep them safe from regime attacks.

Yesterday's developments back up that it is not safe ---- the Syrian military is continuing its bombardment. So while the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade appears to be radical, they also appear to be practical.

The Assad regime has managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory --- it is they who now look like the dangerous radicals in this equation.