An American journalist, living in northwestern Syria for nearly a decade, has been released, six months after he was captured by an al-Qaida-linked militant group, Syrian opposition media reported.
Bilal Abdul Kareem, a native of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has been living in the rebel-held Syrian northwest since 2012, reporting on the Syrian government military campaigns against areas in opposition hands.
He had been detained last August, following a report he did about torture in the prisons of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaida-linked group that dominates the area. Local prominent figures had appealed to the militants to release him.