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.
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Political News
April 24, 2026 15:15 ET Economics news flow was relatively light this week even as the conflict in the Middle East continued, raising concerns for policymakers. In the U.S., spending data, initial jobless claims and pending home sales were the highlights. Business confidence in the biggest euro area economy was in focus in Europe. Inflation data from Japan gained attention in Asia.