In April, Alawite Latakia University student Batoul Alloush was kidnapped by Haitham Ahmad Abbas, a powerful local “security official” and former Nusra commander in Jableh, northwest Syria.
Since then, her parents have gone through hell trying to return their daughter from sexual enslavement. Their story is a microcosm of the terror facing minorities in today’s Syria.
Rua and Suleiman Alloush told The Cradle Batoul was kidnapped after a tipoff from a university administrator. Getting no help from police, they began a search for their daughter themselves, leading them to Abbas’s heavily-guarded villa compound.
About a week into the ordeal, Batoul was filmed in a social media video wearing a hijab, saying she had converted to Salafist Islam.
Rua believes the video was made under duress. “If she had truly left of her own free will, she would have contacted us from the very first minute and told us that she had left and adopted a new religious belief,” she said.
🔊“How can you believe that she would join the very people who killed and displaced her family and burned her city?” Rua asked – referring to the March 2025 attacks on Alawites by Sharaa’s forces, which left 179 civilians, including 28 women and 9 children, dead in their neighborhood alone.
The couple made their own social media video, which went viral and got them a summons from the Criminal Security Department, and attention from pro-government media and influencers. Facing death threats, the couple has been forced to flee their home and go into hiding. Their daughter remains in captivity.
👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime