Al Qaeda kidnaps 300 Kurdish men in Syria

Al Qaeda's official Syrian wing, the Nusra Front, kidnapped 300 Kurdish men in the country's north, a Kurdish official in Syria said on Monday.

Idris Nassan, an official in the Kobani canton, said the men were taken on Sunday evening as they were travelling from the town of Afrin, which is under Kurdish control, to the cities of Aleppo and the capital Damascus. 

"They left women and children but they kidnapped 300 men and young people," he said.

"They captured them in Tuqad village, 20 kilometres west of Aleppo and then they moved them to al-Dana town in Idlib province," he said.

The Nusra Front has not claimed the kidnapping. Syrian state media did not report the incident. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, which tracks the conflict from Britain, said Kurds were kidnapped but it was not clear how many.

Kurdish militia and Islamists have fought in Syria during the four-year-long civil war over territorial disputes. Some hardline Syrian Islamist militants consider Kurds heretics.