DUBAI: Qatari mediation secured the release Sunday of a U.S. journalist missing in Syria since 2012 and held by Al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, officials said Sunday. The release came less than a week after a video surfaced showing the slaying of captive U.S. journalist James Foley at the hands of a militant from Al-Qaeda breakaway group ISIS.

 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said “we are all relieved and grateful knowing that Theo Curtis is coming home after so much time held in the clutches” of the Nusra Front. A Qatari source told Reuters“Qatari intelligence agencies were behind the release of the American journalist in Syria.”

 

The source said he did not know whether Qatar was involved in seeking to free other journalists, but added that “any captives with [ISIS] will be very difficult for Qatar to free, while others with different groups would be easier.” Curtis was handed over to U.N. peacekeepers in the village of Rafid Qunaitra, in the Golan Heights, the United Nations said.