BEIRUT — Gunmen in a rebel-held area near Damascus abducted a leading Syrian human rights lawyer on Tuesday, activists and opposition groups said, the latest in a wave of recent kidnappings targeting antigovernment activists in rebel held areas.
Razan Zaytouni, one of the most outspoken critics of President Bashar Assad's rule, was seized along with her husband and two other activists from the suburb of Douma after armed men broke into their office.
Zaytouni is a founding member of the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network, which confirmed her abduction. Suhair Atassi, a senior member of the main Western-backed Syrian National Coalition opposition group, also confirmed the four had been taken.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction.
At least two activists have been killed and scores have disappeared in the past few months, most in areas dominated by the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said Zaytouni recently received threats from Islamists. Fares Mohammed, a Lebanon-based Syrian activist with the Local Coordination Committees, confirmed the threats and said jihadi groups were active.
Zaytouni was forced into hiding after the revolt against Assad began in March 2011. That year, she was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award for risking her life by breaking the government's media blackout to report on the brutal crackdown. The award, named after a slain Russian journalist, is given annually to a woman human rights defender standing up for victims in a conflict zone.
This latest abduction comes amid a government offensive on suburbs of Damascus. Syrian troops pounded a rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border on Tuesday with airstrikes and artillery, activists said, hitting a town in the mountainous region where they believe opposition fighters are holding a group of nuns.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Assad's forces struck Yabroud, the last significant rebel stronghold in the Qalamoun area, as part of a crushing offensive the army launched last month to cut off rebels' supply routes from Lebanon. The fighting has forced thousands of Syrians to flee.
Yabroud has been under rebel control since early last year and has served as a smuggling hub for opposition fighters.
Activists and officials believe opposition fighters took 12 nuns to Yabroud after seizing them eight days ago.
Six of the nuns denied they had been kidnapped in a video, saying they were being held in a safe place. Their disappearance has increased concerns about the treatment of Christians by hard-liners in the rebel ranks.
In the north on Tuesday, fighters belonging to Fighters of rival Islamic rebel groups battled each other, and at least 12 were killed.