Mohammed Qanatri, the chargé d’affaires of Syria to the United States, allegedly took part in the abduction of an American journalist in 2016, the former captive of Jabhat al-Nusra claimed in a video published on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
Lindsey Snell was abducted by the Sunni terrorist group in 2016, when she was reporting from Aleppo. She was able to escape her captors after two weeks, though was later arrested by Turkish authorities for allegedly trying to cross the border illegally, violating a military zone. After two months in Turkish detention, she was deported back to the United States.
Embedded with a faction of the Free Syrian Army, a paramilitary group aimed at overthrowing the Assad regime, Snell was assured that Nusra was aware and accepted her presence in the city where their influence and control were rapidly growing. It was during this time she met Qanatri, a member of Jabhat al-Nusra and a university student, she said.
Qanatri escorted Snell to military sites and hospitals before eventually agreeing to do a masked interview with the reporter, she claimed.
“We are Muslim groups, Muslim people trying to protect people from Assad regime, from Russian militias, to establish an Islamic country in Syria, Islamic state in Syria… an Islamic state is Islamic controlled by Sharia alone,” a masked man alleged to be Qanatri told her in the interview.
A few days after the interview, where Qanatri allegedly praised suicide bombings as “sacrificing” missions, denied that they caused civilian casualties, and claimed groups willing to accept support from Americans were “stupid,” Nusra terrorists dragged Snell out of the home she was staying in and relocated her to an isolated spot in the countryside.
“I saw Mohammed several times in the first days of my captivity. His final words to me were to tell me that the Nusra militants holding me wanted me to move from the sitting room into a jail cell in the basement. My response was not positive, and shortly after, Nusra moved me to a real prison, and then all these years later, I saw that Qanatri was appointed Syria’s diplomat to America,” she said.
Snell unimpressed with alleged Qanatri reformation
Snell, noting that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has gone through the same transformation, seemed unimpressed with claims that Qanatri had reformed and shed his former terrorist identity.
“Who doesn’t do dumb stuff in their 20s? Some people party too much. Some people stay in bad relationships, and some people fight to establish an Islamic state,” she commented sarcastically.
Syrian regime installs vague legislation to quash dissent
Weighing her position further, Snell highlighted that the new Syrian regime had installed vague legislation that is already being used in countries like Turkey to quash dissent.
“The Syrian government just announced a new set of laws restricting the media. They’re deliberately vague, including provisions against fake news and offensive content, without any details about what would constitute these. This is really concerning,” she said, remarking that the decision to create a press permission category for influencers wouldn’t lead to hard-hitting critical pieces or investigations but “lots of reels from hotels in Raqqa and ice cream shops in Damascus.”
Neither Snell nor the Syrian embassy in the US have responded yet to The Jerusalem Post’s request for comment.