Global InformationNBC News team kidnapping in Syria information
The NBC News Team kidnapping in Syria took place in late 2012 in the midst of the Syrian Civil War, when US journalist Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent of NBC News, with his five-member reporting crew were abducted by armed militants.
Taken hostage on 13 December 2012 near the Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing when crossing into Syria, Richard Engel and his crew members – Aziz Akyavaş, Ghazi Balkiz, John Kooistra, Ian Rivers and Ammar Cheikh Omar – were detained in the vicinity of Ma'arrat Misrin in northern Idlib. Five days later, the six journalists managed to escape during a firefight at a checkpoint of Islamist Ahrar ash-Sham.
The case was controversial, as upon their release, Engel and his crew blamed a Shiite Shabiha group of Assad loyalists for the abduction. The narrative was, however, challenged, and it later turned out that they were most likely abducted by Free Syrian Army (FSA)-aligned Syrian rebel group North Idlib Falcons Brigade. It also became known that NBC News' investigation team had suspected the Sunni group from the outset, but withheld their intelligence.