Syrian rebels release 4 Filipino peacekeepers

Syrian rebels have released four Filipino UN peacekeepers they seized last week in the Golan Heights that prompted the Philippine government to consider withdrawing its contingent from the strife-torn nation.

 The Filipinos were released unharmed on Sunday but would undergo a medical checkup and debriefing, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Brigadier General Domingo Tutaan, who was quoting reports from Damascus.
 
Syria’s Yamouk Martyrs Brigade, the rebel group that held the peacekeepers, issued a statement quoted by the local media in Manila as saying that the four were handed over to a UN delegation on the border area. No other details were provided.
 
This was the second abduction of Filipino peacekeepers since March, when Syrian rebels fighting against troops loyal to President Bashar Al Assad also seized and held for three days 21 of the Philippine peacekeeping forces in the Golan Heights.
 
The fresh abduction prompted Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo to issue a statement saying he would recommend to President Benigno Aquino III the withdrawal of the Philippine contingent from Syria.
 
The peacekeepers were part of a UN contingent that patrols a buffer zone between Syria and the Golan Heights, a plateau captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 war.
 
About 1,000 UN peacekeepers, mainly from India and Austria, have been patrolling the Golan Heights. Croatia has withdrawn its contingent from the area.
 
Tensions have risen in the Golan Heights since two years ago, when civil war broke out in Syria following the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt. The area had been quiet for four decades.