The Philippines has urged for the release of 21 UN peacekeepers detained by rebels at Golan Heights. Source: AAP
CLASHES between Syrian troops and rebel fighters flared near an area where armed fighters linked to the opposition abducted 21 UN peacekeepers a day earlier.
The peacekeepers are part of a force that monitors a ceasefire between Israeli and Syrian troops in the Golan Heights.
Israel captured part of the territory in the 1967 Mideast war, and while the area has been peaceful for decades, Israeli officials have grown increasingly jittery as the Syrian civil war moves closer to its borders.
On Thursday, the Syrian army battled opposition fighters near the Golan Heights in the southern province of Daraa, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said the fighting was concentrated on the outskirts of the Syrian village of Jamlah, where gunmen on Wednesday detained 21 UN peacekeepers from the Philippines.
In an online video, a man identified as a spokesman for the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigades said his group will hold the peacekeepers until Assad's forces withdraw from Jamlah.
The Yarmouk Brigades said in a statement on its Facebook page on Thursday that Assad's troops are pounding the Jamlah, and warned that the army will be responsible if the peacekeepers in rebel custody are harmed.
Israel, which captured much of the Golan in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community, said it feared any depletion of the UN force would pose a serious threat.
"This kidnapping is likely to convince countries who participate in this force to bring their troops home, which would undoubtedly create a dangerous vacuum in no-man's land on the Golan," an Israeli official said.
The top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily said Israeli officials feared that "al-Qaeda members will take control of the buffer zone."
In the Philippines, the government said Thursday that talks were under way for the release of the peacekeepers.
Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Raul Hernandez said the 21 were unharmed and were being treated as "visitors and guests".
The capture came a week after the announcement that a member of the peacekeeping force is missing.
The force, known as UNDOF, was established a year after the 1973 war. It monitors the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces and maintains a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Syria's state-run news agency says Israeli spying devices have been found in the country's coastal region.
SANA's report says the devices are designed to photograph, register and transfer data. There were no further details on the objects or the location of the find.
State-run TV aired footage of an object consisting of what looked like a camera and a satellite dish, and other objects that resembled rocks.
Plastic boxes resembling batteries and cables were shown lined up in a room.
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