Yohanna Ibrahim, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Aleppo, and Paul Yazigi, the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Aleppo, have both been kidnapped by armed rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Syria's state news agency SANA.
The rebel forces dispute the claim of the Assad regime that they are the guilty party, and say that it is in fact the doing of the government.
The New York Times writes that, until now, high-ranking members of Syria's Christian minority have remained untargeted, even as the country's highest-ranking Sunni imam was killed in a mosque bombing last month.
Archbishop Yazgi was not known to be politically active, but archbishop Ibrahim had previously been supportive of Assad, before becoming a critic of the embattled regime. In a recent BBC interview he chided Assad for poor crisis management.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.