Kidnapping of the archbishops of Aleppo

Who wanted to make Boulos Yazigi and Youhanna Ibrahim disappear? (1/3)

On April 17, about 15 people gathered in the conference room on the second floor of the Sofitel in Beirut. Only their clothing distinguished them. Priests and bishops, representing nine Eastern Churches, greeted each other and discussed current events over coffee with Lebanese ministers or their delegates.

Behind the tables—where religious figures sat on the left and politicians on the right—stood portraits of the two archbishops of Aleppo, Greek Orthodox Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Youhanna Ibrahim, bearing the inscription : "We do not forget, nor do we remain silent." The speakers, invited by the Orthodox Meeting, took turns addressing an issue that had long faded from public attention.

On April 22, 2013, two Syrian religious leaders were kidnapped in the province of Aleppo. The incident sent shockwaves through the Eastern Churches and resonated far beyond Syria. From Pope Francis to Muslim clerics in the region, from Lebanon to Greece and from France to Qatar, the abduction was firmly condemned.

Eleven years later, the investigation into their disappearance has not advanced an inch. Many intermediaries, backed by half of the region’s intelligence services, have tried to unravel the mystery—to no avail. Officially, they all hit a dead end. No one knows if they are dead or alive. No one knows who is behind their abduction.

Why them? Why did these two prominent representatives of the Eastern Churches vanish without any group claiming responsibility or demanding a ransom? Why did it happen at a time when the outcome of the Syrian war—then in its second year—was uncertain?

"It's bigger than what we can imagine. We can't talk about it."

Some compare this mystery to the fate of the renowned Shiite Imam and founder of the Amal movement, Moussa Sadr, who disappeared in 1978. But this often-cited analogy suggests we may never uncover the full truth. "It's bigger than what we can imagine. We can't talk about it," a Levantine cleric confided, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Indeed, the topic still provokes hesitation, abrupt silences, and at times, warnings. "It’s such a sensitive issue that it’s better left untouched," the cleric told L'Orient-Le Jour. "It involves people’s lives... and yours." For the first time since their disappearance, L'Orient-Le Jour has reconstructed much of the puzzle—though a definitive answer remains elusive.

To conduct this unprecedented investigation, we interviewed more than 20 individuals close to the missing bishops, including religious, political, diplomatic, security, and intellectual sources. Some agreed to speak only under the condition of anonymity. However, despite repeated requests for over a year, the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Patriarchates never responded.

Prelude

It was the brisk winter of 2013. The battle for Aleppo raged between loyalist forces positioned in the east and rebel forces in the west. In mid-January, the bodies of dozens of young men were found in the Qoueiq River, which runs through the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood.

The opposition accused the Damascus regime of carrying out summary executions against civilians. As during the Lebanese Civil War, kidnappings by both sides were rampant. The country’s main and back roads were dotted with checkpoints. Travel was, at best, interminable and, at worst, life-threatening.

"In its modern history, Aleppo has not experienced such critical and painful moments as in recent weeks. Christians have been attacked and kidnapped in a monstrous manner, and their relatives have paid large sums for their release," Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim told Reuters in September 2012. He had hit the nail on the head. A few weeks before his and Boulos Yazigi’s disappearance, another kidnapping would set the stage for this story.

It was Feb. 9, 2013. Father Maher Mahfouz was passing through Aleppo to visit his sick mother. Afterward, he was to return to Saint George Monastery of the Greek Orthodox Church in Wadi Nassara, just a few kilometers from the famous Krak des Chevaliers. Meanwhile, Armenian-Catholic priest Michael Kayyal—only 26 years old—was on his way to Beirut Airport. Along with their Maronite counterpart, Charbel Daourat, the three men boarded a public bus departing from Aleppo, heading toward Kafroun in the Tartus Governorate. Checkpoints were everywhere. A few kilometers from Saraqeb, on the highway connecting Aleppo to Damascus—then controlled by government forces—the vehicle was stopped by unidentified armed men. They ordered the first two clergymen, identifiable by their cassocks, to get off.

Luckily, Father Charbel was dressed in civilian clothes and escaped the kidnappers' vigilance. "Our brother Michael Kayyal had just celebrated his first year as a priest. He was supposed to fly to Rome that day," Armenian-Catholic Patriarch Raphael Minassian told L'Orient-Le Jour from his office in Beirut in November 2023. "We still don't know who kidnapped them, but I think there is an unknown power, a fifth column. It brings death, but it cannot dominate the spirit," he said evasively.

At the time, the two young clerics' kidnapping almost went unnoticed. The local press barely mentioned it. According to a 2018 report by the Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights entitled "The Good Shepherd" — which details the violence and brutality against priests in Syria since the beginning of the civil war —, "informed sources close to the government" claimed they were abducted by an extremist Islamist group. However, "the surviving priest recounted that these men had a coastal accent," explained Jamil Diarbakerli, executive director of this Sweden-based NGO and the nephew of Youhanna Ibrahim.

Half an hour after the kidnapping, the abductors contacted Father Michael's brother, demanding a ransom of 15 million Syrian pounds (over $200,000 at the time) and the release of "15 [unspecified] detainees" from the regime's prisons, claiming no affiliation. The family agreed to pay.

Strange developments followed. The hostage-takers changed their stance: They now only wanted the money. For two months, negotiations were conducted by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, and the ransom was eventually dropped to one million pounds. "It was supposedly paid. The Church was looking for someone who could go to opposition territory to retrieve the priests, so Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim volunteered," Fouad Eliaa, his friend of 30 years and the only survivor of the bishops' kidnapping, told L’Orient-Le Jour.

"This wasn't something new for us. We had done it dozens of times before."

The cleric was no stranger to such endeavors. Leveraging his good relations within the regime and among the opposition, he used his position and diplomatic skills to navigate in this fratricidal struggle. Fouad Eliaa often accompanied him on these kinds of "operations," which involved jumping into a car to retrieve hostages.

"This wasn't something new for us. We had done it dozens of times before. The officers of the Free Syrian Army knew him, and the regime was systematically kept informed," he recounted. The two men have known each other since 1980, the year when this schoolteacher was released from a one-year prison sentence for opposing Hafez al-Assad's regime. "My uncle's fame extended beyond our small Syriac Orthodox community. He was considered the archbishop of all Christians and had very good relations with other religious groups. When the revolution broke out, he didn't sever ties with those who participated; they were his friends," explained Jamil Diarbakerli.

One last photograph

The mission to recover the two priests was scheduled for Monday, April 22, 2013. Archbishop Ibrahim meet with Syrian army officers the day before to inform them of the expedition. Less than a 100 kilometers away in Antioch, the Greek Orthodox archbishop Boulos Yazigi was concluding his pastoral visit in Turkey and attempting to return to Aleppo. Through a series of circumstances, he would join the convoy.

The meeting was set at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. Youhanna Ibrahim and his friend Fouad Eliaa were about to leave Aleppo in a small gray car driven by Deacon Fathallah Kaboud. But to cross rebel-held areas safely, the cleric needed solid support. That support came in the form of Abderrahmane Allaf, a lawyer who was then head of the Supreme Judicial Council within the opposition. "We had known each other for a long time. He called me that morning and said, 'I trust only you.' So I brought along my son and an armed man responsible for our protection," recounted the jurist, exiled in Turkey. The kidnappers demanded that the archbishop come alone at the rendezvous point, but Allaf advised against it. They were to go together. The two cars followed each other to the Turkish border and picked up Bishop Yazigi.

En route, the convoy passed through checkpoints of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with no issues. "The FSA men respected Youhanna Ibrahim; they welcomed him very warmly," said Allaf. In Sarmada, a city in the Idlib province, Bishop Ibrahim was supposed to meet the kidnappers of the two priests. "They gave us one meeting point, then another. We searched the entire city," remembered the lawyer.

"It was a decoy; no one showed up. They deceived us over the phone, so we decided to return to Aleppo," added Fouad Eliaa. Before parting ways, the group stopped at Allaf's farm in Hawar, a small village in the countryside. The deacon took a final photograph with Abderrahmane Allaf's son's camera. The two bishops smiled.

The two cars then separated at the FSA checkpoint in Kfar Dael. The archbishops' vehicle had to cross a "no man's land" a few kilometers to Mansoura before finally arriving at the Syrian army checkpoint. On a busy road, 500 meters away, a large 4x4 forced them to pull over to the side. Four armed men pointed their assault rifles at the passengers. The assailants had "faces from the East, Chechen or Kyrgyz type," uttered no words and communicated only through gestures.

"They pulled out the deacon, who fled toward the army post. I protested, but they forced me to get out by threatening me with a rifle and grenades. Then they stole the vehicle with the archbishops and sped off towards Kfar Dael," recounted the survivor. Left on the side of the road, the former teacher chose to head back in the opposite direction of the deacon, toward the opposition checkpoint.

After over an hour, he arrived in Hawar, at Allaf's place, who hurried to question the FSA fighters stationed at the Kfar Dael checkpoint. The SUV and the priests' car had arrived in haste before them. "It was the first time our men had seen these guys; they were suspicious," he said.

According to the testimonies he gathered, a scuffle ensued as Archbishop Ibrahim tried to escape from the car. Caught by the collar, he barely had time to throw his ID card out the window, shouting "ya wladi" (my children), addressing the FSA soldiers, before the two vehicles disappeared into the dust.

The deacon was found dead, shot in the forehead less than a kilometer from the abduction site. He had been heading towards loyalist positions, between buildings in the al-Rashideen complex. "From the moment he fled until I left the area, I didn't hear any gunfire, so I don't think it was the kidnappers," added Fouad Eliaa.

No leads, no clues

The official Syrian news agency SANA was the first to report the information, stating that the two bishops fell into the hands of a "terrorist group" (terminology used by the regime to refer to any opposition group) while "conducting humanitarian work." This announcement sent shockwaves within the Churches in Syria and Lebanon. Leaving the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and the East devastated. This was for good reason: Youhanna Yazigi, who had been elected just a few months earlier under the name John X, is Boulos Yazigi's brother. Could it be that he was directly targeted through the kidnapping?

The next day, Pope Francis was among of the first to react, followed by the Orthodox Church of Moscow, the various patriarchs of the Eastern Churches and representatives of Muslim communities in Lebanon.

There was a flurry of activity in the offices of Lebanese politicians. Members of Parliament, ministers, the Prime Minister and the President at the time, Michel Sleiman, all denounced the kidnapping, calling for their immediate release. Sleiman quickly contacted his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, hoping his intelligence services in opposition-held areas had seen or heard something.  "We knocked on every embassy's door, but there were never any leads, no clues about potential sponsors or evidence of their survival or death. The Turks told us they knew nothing, just like the Syrians. And since the incident concerned a small Christian minority, no one seemed to care, especially the Westerners," Habib Afrem, president of the Syriac League in Lebanon, still denounces today. For the opposition, the timing of the affair couldn’t have been worse. The Free Syrian Army, which encompassed a range of rebel factions, was quick to react in the Western press. It asserted its total innocence and vehemently denounced this act.

One man's phone never stopped ringing: Syrian, Lebanese, Qatari, Greek and French leaders or personalities took turns on the line. He is a Greek Orthodox from Qatana, a small town in the Damascus suburbs. He had been in exile in Paris for two years. But above all, he is a long-standing opponent of the regime. As president of the Syrian National Council — a political authority formed in September 2011 that at the time brought together around 30 opposition groups — he is the number one political figure in the rebellion. "It was my responsibility to know the truth; I immediately took the matter in my own hand," Georges Sabra told L’Orient-Le Jour.

The confusion led to false leads. On April 23, the French Christian association L’Œuvre d’Orient announced the release of the bishops, Claiming they were at the Saint Elijah Church in Aleppo, based on reports from 'Christians on the ground." This statement was immediately denied by the Greek Orthodox archdiocese of the city. "We were devastated to have announced this incorrect information, especially since this tragedy had deeply affected us, as we felt it was a vulnerability for all Christian communities," recounted Director of L’Œuvre d’Orient Bishop Pascal Gollnisch. The association was not the only one to jump the gun. "We were clinging to any hope, and we believed in this hypothesis, but after contacts with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, we knew it was false," recalled Georges Sabra, who also announced their swift release.

"We were clinging to any hope."

Abderrahmane Allaf and Fouad Eliaa were the last to have seen the bishops before their disappearance. They combed the region for more than 10 days. "We left no stone unturned. But I quickly realized that it couldn't have been someone from our side because the abduction took place too close to the Syrian army," said the lawyer. "The revolutionaries had no interest in committing such a crime. None. I wasn't a representative of the FSA, but this man of faith came to us, and he trusted us," he added.

Through our investigation, clues helped refine the leads. On the day of the events, the kidnappers released the other two passengers, Fouad Eliaa and Fathallah Kabboud, in the car and only seized the two archbishops. "That shows they had information and clear orders to select their targets," said the president of the Syrian National Council.

Who wanted to make these two men of faith disappear? A radical Islamist group? A gang motivated by money? The regime itself? All possibilities were considered. But the fact that no one ever claimed responsibility for the kidnapping or demanded money or a prisoner exchange clouds the true motive of the crime.

In this case full of mysteries, one name kept coming up in conversations: Abbas Ibrahim. Just a few days after the abduction, the file landed on the head of General Security's desk at the request of the Greek Orthodox Church. He was the man for the job: An army general, former head of the counter-terrorism and espionage department in the Southern branch of the intelligence services and above all known for playing a leading role in an earlier mediation related to the Syrian crisis.

Five months before the archbishops' abduction, on Nov. 30, 2012, 21 young Lebanese and Palestinian Sunnis from Tripoli and Akkar had joined the rebellion against the regime and were killed in a Syrian army ambush near the town of Tall Kalakh in the province of Homs. Mandated by the Lebanese state, the head of Security negotiated with Damascus the return of the bodies and the extradition of one captive. Abbas Ibrahim is close to Hezbollah, endorsed by Damascus, and has connections with Turkish and Qatari intelligence services. He is the preferred interlocutor of Western countries. In this context, there are many leads that could reveal more clues...

The Turkish trail, Russian infiltrations and American silence (2/3)

In early April 2013, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo Youhanna Ibrahim made contact for the first time with the Head of the Lebanese General Security (GS) Abbas Ibrahim via an intermediary.

The two men had little in common other than their last names. The former is a man of faith and a recognized intellectual in the region, rumored to be the next patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The latter is a military man turned indispensable negotiator in security and diplomatic affairs and rumored to be poised for a prominent political role.

However, since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war two years earlier, they shared another commonality. The high religious dignitary had taken on the role of discreet mediator in certain abduction cases, particularly of Christians, in the Aleppo province. Meanwhile, the conflict had spilled over into Syria's neighboring country, Lebanon, and the powerful general had been working for nearly a year to secure the release of nine Shiite nationals captured by a rebel group in May 2012 in the same region while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran. "Archbishop Ibrahim offered me his help," the former head of GS recounted to L'Orient Today in May 2023, sinking into his chair. "Unfortunately, I never the chance to respond, because a week later, he was the one who got kidnapped."

Since leaving his post at the helm of GS in March 2023, Abbas Ibrahim has been receiving visitors on the third floor of an upscale building, under high surveillance, in the southern suburbs. "I don't have all my files at hand yet; I've just moved in, but you can look at these," he said, handing over two files, each containing a few pages which he retrieves from a cupboard. They detail the kidnapping of the two archbishops of Aleppo on April 22, 2013. "This story is a bit like that of Imam Moussa Sadr. Will we ever know the truth about what happened? I don't know," he said.

Having held one of the highest security and strategic positions in the country for twelve years and been entrusted with the most sensitive missions, did he just confess powerlessness concerning this particular case? When he was tasked by the Eastern Churches, Abbas Ibrahim first contacted the Syrian authorities to obtain information related to the circumstances of the abduction. During our meeting, he handed over a frail dossier resembling more a compilation of administrative documents than an investigation, allowing us only to look at it on-site. The circumstances of the abduction are written in Arabic, and official requests for assistance from the Turkish and Qatari authorities annexed. These two countries were providing financial and logistical support to armed rebel groups opposed to Assad, and therefore might have crucial information about the fate of the archbishops. But from Ankara to Doha and from Damascus to Moscow, where he visited multiple times, the response was the same: "We know nothing about it," he said, emphasizing each word.

Chechen Trail

In the early press articles that appeared, it was vaguely mentioned that the two religious leaders were kidnapped while on a "humanitarian mission." Archbishop Ibrahim, the initiator of the expedition, was then one of the few, if not the only one, to serve as a mediator between the two sides in the region, where prisoner exchanges were sometimes negotiated, according to the sole survivor of the abduction, Fouad Eliaa. Archbishop Boulos Yazigi, a fine scholar, and author of numerous books, had never taken on this negotiator role, and his presence during the expedition was coincidental. "Had they become a burden for the parties occupying the area? Only God knows, but we want to know, " pondered former Aley deputy (co-founder of the Lebanese Democratic Party, Arslane, pro-Syrian) Marwan Abou Fadel, head of the Orthodox Liqaa Party. He doesn't know who to blame. 

At the time of their disappearance, for both the Syrian authorities, the Churches and their representatives, the culprit was already designated: It could only be the opposition seeking to destabilize the Christian communities by targeting two of its most prominent members. The origin of the four mercenaries behind the attack points in that direction. According to Fouad Eliaa's testimony, they were Chechens. The Syrian Ministry of Waqf, responsible for Religious Affairs, promptly mentioned this in a statement the day after the abduction, asserting that there was evidence that the kidnappers were "Chechen mercenaries operating under the auspices of al-Nusra (the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda)." This was based on the interrogation of the sole witness to the abduction, specifying that he wished to remain anonymous. "According to this person, the kidnappers spoke classical Arabic and looked like foreigners. They told him they were Chechen jihadists," Damascus authorities said.

However, the witness in question, who was none other than Fouad Eliaa, claimed to L'Orient Today that he had never spoken to the authorities in the days following the abduction. He even denied their version of events: "They didn't speak at all, but they made themselves understood through gestures," he maintained.

"These are Russian security infiltrations"

As early as 2011, hundreds of jihadists from Chechnya and the neighboring republic, Dagestan, had flown to 'Bilad al-Sham,' covertly encouraged by Moscow, delighted to see them fight far from home. It was in the Aleppo region that they reappeared in late 2012 and fought alongside local factions before later joining radical movements like al-Nusra or the so-called Islamic State. In early 2013, a Russo-Chechen brigade operating in the Aleppo region was accused by the rebel group 'Liwa al-Islam' (later renamed 'Jaysh al-Islam') of seizing villages by force and instilling terror. "Who introduced some Caucasians into the areas of the Syrian opposition? These are Russian security infiltrations," accused George Sabra, president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

"These men are suspected of being manipulated by Russian intelligence personnel and of committing the abuses they are accused of, including the kidnapping on April 22 of two bishops of Aleppo," wrote former French diplomat Wladimir Glasman, in his blog 'Un œil sur la Syrie,' (an eye on Syria) six days after the incident. The aim? "To contribute to discrediting the entire revolution and stoking interfaith violence, which the current regime continues to see as one of its possible lifelines."

The Syrian regime and its affiliates accuse Nour al-Dine el-Zinki, a group close to the Muslim Brotherhood and supported at the time by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, of being the real masterminds behind the kidnapping.

Within the command structure of the armed rebellion, especially among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which includes about ten factions including Zinki, a crisis cell is established. "All we knew was that the kidnappers were mercenaries who disappeared as quickly as they appeared. We contacted each opposition group one by one, but it yielded nothing," recalled a former representative of the FSA, speaking anonymously. "In case of kidnappings by opposition groups, information circulated. There was always access, even among jihadist groups like al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Cham," observed political analyst Ziad Majed.

Behind the diplomatic scenes, efforts were also underway. In Doha, emissaries came and went. In October 2013, facing the Maronite patriarch of Antioch and all the East, Patriarch Bechara al-Rai, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani promised to "throw all his weight into the balance to determine the fate of the archbishops and obtain their release."

"This incident could only discredit our cause, so it was crucial to find the perpetrators. Enormous sums, tens of millions of dollars, were offered by the Qataris in exchange for their release, but we didn't know who to approach and no one came forward," continued the former FSA representative. Six months later, hopes are still alive. After a visit to the Greek Orthodox patriarch, Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Samir Mokbel assured that the two bishops "are in good health and a safe place." In the early years, such developments occasionally arose: Hearsay, rumors, but nothing tangible. No proof of life ever reached the families. These murky circumstances sow doubt among the ranks of the Syrian opposition. "No one ever came forward to 'benefit' politically from this abduction. However, if they were indeed held by an opposition group, there would have been backstage clues or ransom demands," suggested George Sabra.

'Erdogan behind the murder'

Interrogated by the official Argentine news agency Telam in May 2013, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claims to have information about the presence of the two prelates on the Syrian-Turkish border. He said he closely followed the issue to free them from the hands of "terrorists." This would be the only time he publicly mentioned the issue. State television occasionally reported on elements of the ongoing investigation. "And then, they announce that it is Erdogan himself who ordered their murder," recounted Ayman Abdelnour, former advisor to Bashar al-Assad (until 2004) and president of the opposition NGO 'Syrian Christians for Peace,' not without irony. The Turkish track would be favored by the Syrian authorities due to Turkey's links with the rebellion. And since no clues come from Syrian territory, the archbishops may have been taken to Turkey. Religious media, relaying a Russian NGO, circulated this hypothesis based on information coming from the Syrian regime, the Republic's Mufti, Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun. The motive mentioned by the latter? Ankara would want to transfer the seat of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, located in Damascus, to Turkey.

"Contact with Turkish authorities was constant," Abbas Ibrahim asserted during our interview in 2023. In October 2013, he had traveled there when a supposed agreement for their release seemed close to materializing at the same time as that of the Shiite Lebanese pilgrims. "A false lead," he confessed. "Many ordinary people in Turkey offered us exchanges, images, or proof of life for money. It was all hot air," the general recounted. "The Turks assured us they had nothing to do with it. No serious information has come from that side," added an important Lebanese emissary, speaking anonymously.

In 2014, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs definitively denied Syrian accusations in a statement and assured that it is deploying efforts to secure their release. "It is evident that these allegations are put forward by certain circles to put Turkey in a difficult situation and to serve their own objectives," the statement related. "Even if we must not rule out any actors, I don't see what Turkey's aim would be in this matter," opined Jamil Diarbakerli, executive director of the Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights (an NGO based in Sweden) and nephew of Archbishop Ibrahim.

Notable absentees?

While the whole world seems to be searching for them, one country is missing: The United States. They did not join the flood of vigorous condemnations from the Vatican and Arab and Western heads of state.  "In the past, we've seen the American government hesitate to speak too assertively about the persecution of Christians, lest they be seen as a vanguard of a kind of Christian imperialism," explained Thomas Farr, a former director of the Office of International Religious Freedom at the State Department, interviewed on April 24, 2013, by the Catholic News Agency. A month later, seventy-two members of the US Congress urged the State Department to rectify the situation and "to make the immediate release and safe return of Metropolitans Yazigi and Ibrahim a priority in [their] efforts in the region." But the US administration remained quite shy. At that time, Washington's priority was elsewhere. It was to militarily support the FSA, after obtaining evidence of the regime's use of chemical weapons.

This silence was all the more incomprehensible given that Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim holds American citizenship. "They did not take it seriously. Was it because he was a dual citizen?" questioned his nephew Jamil Diarbakerli. "Anyway, the fate of Christians in the region does not matter to them," he added.

"We will no longer remain silent"

Eleven years later, this policy has not changed, or very little. The US State Department, through its spokesperson Noel Clay, indicated to L'Orient Today in May 2023, that they had "nothing to say on the subject." After several access requests and four months of waiting, our outlet nonetheless obtained, from US authorities, declassified documents exclusively under the Freedom of Information Act. In the 69-page dossier are newspaper articles, correspondences between officials on the subject, briefings on the situation in Syria, and requests for help from Christian associations, religious figures, or civilians.

But there was a particular note that catches the attention. In April 2017, a petition launched by the International Christian Union, an NGO based in the United States, urged the country to provide answers about their disappearance, and mentioned twice the American citizenship of Youhanna Ibrahim. "It has now been four years that we have been investigating behind the scenes. We will no longer remain silent. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act and the fact that one of these men is an American citizen, we now demand from the United States government in particular and from the international community in general that they provide us with answers about where they are," the original text stated.

In one of the email exchanges between officials at the State Department dating from April 2018, one of them wrote: "With this online petition, we could be asked questions. We have closely guarded (secret) his American citizenship." He then indicated that the HRFC (Fusion Cell for Hostage Recovery) will schedule a call with the nephew. "No one in the US government called me at that time, or at any other time," assured Jamil Diarbakerli. According to the documents, the FBI asked an individual, whose name was redacted, to contact the parishioner behind the petition to ask him to remove the mention of citizenship. The latter refused. The version now online has, in any case, been stripped of this "embarrassing" element. “I received several calls, from the Syriac Orthodox archdiocese, then from a family member, who asked me to remove it for security reasons, so we did it,” explained Joseph Hakim, president of the International Christian Union.

Why did the United States deliberately conceal the fact that one of their citizens had been abducted? Knox Thames, now a university professor, is "familiar with these two tragic cases" and was pleased that we want to "highlight their plight." In 2015, he was appointed Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South/Central Asia at the US Department of State. He's the only one who agreed to answer our questions. However, once received via email, the discomfort was palpable.  "If it was widely known they had American citizenship, it would likely place them in even more serious danger. I don't know for certain if that's the logic, but that would be a wise decision by those working to see them returned," he wrote.

Yet, the abductions in Syria of two American nationals, Austin Tice in August 2012 and Kayla Mueller in August 2013, were publicly acknowledged by the US government. "Their priority is the release of Tice, who is held by the Syrian regime. The Americans are negotiating directly with Damascus," confided an Arab diplomat, speaking anonymously. Did the Americans realize early enough that they would get nothing on Youhanna Ibrahim? 

In July 2019, the Reward for Justice program announced a reward of $5 million for any information on the kidnapping of two priests, Michael Kayyal and Maher Mahfouz, Archbishop Youhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, and Father Paolo Dall'Oglio. Curiously, these kidnappings are all attributed to the so-called Islamic State. While the Italian Jesuit priest was indeed abducted by ISIS in July 2013 in Raqqa, this hypothesis is also valid in the eyes of US diplomacy regarding the Syrian clerics. The former is said to have been abducted by "extremists presumed to be from ISIS," while the latter may have been kidnapped "by individuals aligned with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda," but were "later transferred to ISIS." None of those interviewed in this investigation, witnesses, diplomats, opponents, military personnel, or even regime insiders, ever mentioned ISIS as a potential sponsor of the abduction. It must be said that at the time of the events, ISIS was still in its infancy in Syrian territory and did not exert its full weight in the Aleppo province, where the abduction took place.

Muddying the waters

In January 2020, nearly seven years after their disappearance, a lengthy article presented as an "investigation",  riddled with inconsistencies, was published in English on the website, Medium, signed by a "Syrian researcher based in the United States" named Mansur Salib. According to his hypothesis, the abduction of the bishops, and before them of two priests, were organized by Georges Sabra with the help of Turkish intelligence services, all under the auspices of "the United States," to "destabilize the situation in the country." "Their martyrdom was predetermined long before the abduction when the head of the Syrian opposition met with representatives of American and Turkish intelligence agencies."

"Fake news" is born

To do this, according to Salib's hypothesis, Ibrahim and Yazigi could have been kidnapped and then killed in December 2016 by Islamists from Nour al-Din al-Zenki, an Islamist rebel group, willing to convert them to Islam. The only witness cited in this "investigation" is a certain Yasser Mehdi, presented as one of the bishops' jailers, who was subsequently arrested by the Syrian army. "I was contacted by 'email' and I answered the questions as I do every time journalists contact me. But when the text came out, I found it very suspicious. My answers were manipulated to serve a theory, which fits perfectly with the Syrian authorities' version and which I do not subscribe to," summarized Jamil Diarbakerli. In November 2019, he was contacted, in English, by a certain Klaus Ulbricht who introduced himself as a journalist without specifying his affiliation or the media he worked for. The problem? No journalist by that name exists. According to our research, the email address used for the interview seems to have been created on Gmail only for this purpose and has been little used since. The article is posted on the Medium platform, a site that allows anyone to publish their writings. The pseudonym of the author, "Mansur Salib," presenting himself as a "Syrian researcher in the United States," was used to give more credibility and weight to the publication.

Here, "fake news" was born. It now needs to spread. And what better way to do that than at the highest level of Christianity, The Vatican? Relayed, unquestioningly, by Fides agency, the news agency of the Holy See, it will be the subject of attention for media or associations close to the far right, supportive of Bashar al-Assad. But, several Lebanese media outlets will also be fooled. The Eastern Churches, however, would not comment on the matter.

This is not the first time that the propaganda machine had been set in motion. "Since day one, there have been parties in Lebanon affiliated with the Syrian regime, the 'moumanaa,' spreading contradictory information so that people look elsewhere," lamented the nephew. In the first few years, different channels will share more false information. Their goal? To both give hope to the dwindling Syrian Christian community but also, above all, to show that the Syrian regime is actively participating in the search for the archbishops. Mastering this field is the highly controversial Sister Agnès-Mariam de la Croix. This Lebanese-Palestinian nun, mother superior of the Monastery of St. Jacques the Mutilated, in Qara, in the province of Homs, who is as devoted to Assad as to Jesus, nicknamed the "media shabiha" (Shabiha is a term for state-sponsored militias of the Syrian government loyal to the Assad family) announced in 2016 via the Russian propaganda media outlet, Sputnik, that the two clerics are alive and well, and are in Raqqa, then under the control of the so-called Islamic State.

"The time has come to reveal the shocking truth"

On the morning of April 7, 2023, a mysterious sheikh from Akkar, Lebanon, dropped a bombshell, just two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the abduction of the two archbishops. As if he was a true spokesperson for the Syrian regime, Abdel Salam Harrach, coordinator within the Arab Resistance Movement, declared to the Lebanese National News Agency that the Syrian state has dealt with the issue, as it did with the abduction of the nuns from Maaloula, and that the time has "now come to reveal the shocking truth." The two archbishops have been dead since "the beginning of their abduction." The day before the sheikh's statements, on the occasion of a ceremony in their memory, Abbas Ibrahim had said the opposite to L'Orient Today, even claiming to have had news of them in 2022.

The sheikh's statement was followed on the same day by a denial from a branch of the family of Youhanna Ibrahim, who asked that these "unsubstantiated allegations" should not be taken seriously. "This is not the first time this has happened. There have been several false pieces of information of this kind, exchanges of proof of life or photos for money," reported former MP Marwan Abou Fadel, who claimed that the Greek Orthodox Church has never paid for information. "Unfortunately, it has fallen into this trap several times," contradicted the Lebanese emissary, speaking anonymously.

Jamil Diarbakerli, however, is convinced that the sheikh in question received orders to make such statements. "How could a mere sheikh have this kind of information?" he asked. "Look at his affiliation and you will find the correlation..."

The road to Damascus (3/3)

"It's not the regime," former head of General Security Abbas Ibrahim refuted. "I fail to see the interest the Syrian regime would have had in kidnapping archbishops. It's nonsensical," added Director of L'Œuvre d'Orient Pascal Gollnisch.

It has been eleven years since the abduction of the two archbishops of Aleppo shook the Eastern Churches. Every April since then, they revive their memory and pray for their brothers, but cannot answer the questions. Who is behind this act? Are the archbishops still alive or have they been murdered? Officially, no one knows.

The abduction was never claimed, and no ransom was demanded. There was no evidence and few leads. It was as if they had vanished into thin air. The nagging question remains: Why were they targeted?

To try to answer this question, it is essential to understand the context of that time. The Syrian war had begun two years earlier. The opposition was gaining ground but was divided and infiltrated by Islamist groups. Their presence instilled fear, especially among the Alawite and Christian minorities whose support was essential for the regime's survival. The regime did not hesitate to fuel this fear and consolidate its power. It presented itself as the last bastion against fundamentalists, the protector of some against others. This rhetoric appealed to the minorities in the region and certain segments of Western public opinion. The local religious authorities had to be the best advocates of this rhetoric.

Head of the Greek Orthodox Church and Patriarch of Antioch and the East Youhanna Yazigi indicated that he did not share this view in his first press conference after his appointment on Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. "What is happening to us is happening to others as well. We are in the same situation as anyone else, Muslims and Christians, standing alongside each other facing difficulties," he said. This would be his only statement outside the norm. Four months later, his brother, Archbishop Boulos Yazigi, disappeared with Ibrahim. Was he directly targeted through this abduction? Nothing in our investigation allowed us to assert that. Especially since his brother was a discreet man who happened to be in the convoy stopped that day by chance.

"He considered the Christian world in exile a reality and not a fate." 

The further our investigation went, the more this became evident. Youhanna Ibrahim – Mar Gregorios and the second archbishop – was the central figure in this story. "He was the most important target," emphasized the president of the Syrian National Council, Georges Sabra.  

Youhanna Ibrahim was born in 1949 in Qamishli to a family of survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide. He became a monk at the age of 25. This marked the beginning of a meteoric rise. He flew to Rome, to the Pontifical Oriental Institute, in the early 1970s. At the age of 30, he was already appointed Archbishop of Aleppo. He pursued further studies in England and the United States. "He was extremely cultured, very intelligent and charismatic, quickly becoming a high-ranking religious figure," recounted one of his friends, Syrian political scientist Salam Kawakibi.

"He understood that his Church was in transition. That the time of the all-powerful village priest was over. Even before the invasion of Iraq or the massacres of Nineveh or Mosul, he sensed that Christians were going to open up internationally," said the French writer and journalist, specialist in religious minorities, Sébastien de Courtois, who knew him. "He was one of the first archbishops to tour Europe to meet the communities. He considered the Christian world in exile a reality and not a fate," he added.

Razor's Edge

While some prelates turned their backs on Christian dissidents, Youhanna Ibrahim worked to keep them out of prison. After his release, Fouad Éliaa – his friend and survivor of the abduction, who was imprisoned for a year in 1980 under Hafez al-Assad – met him for the first time. "'Hamdellah aas-salame. We are proud of you'," he told him. "He worried about us, but he was not in favor of fighting against the regime. He was pragmatic," said writer and researcher Sleiman Youssef, also from Qamishli.

This was a tightrope that became untenable after the outbreak of the revolution in March 2011. The violent repression of the regime against peaceful protesters took its toll on his pragmatism. In the first weeks, he understood that this chapter would be different from the others. "With the assassination of thousands of civilians, something awakened in him. He believed he was ready to intervene, to speak to everyone. But he was a man of the Church, not a political activist like Paolo (Dall'oglio)," explained Salam Kawakibi, referring to the Italian Jesuit priest and opponent of the Assad regime kidnapped by the Islamic State in Raqqa in July 2013.

On Oct. 24, 2012, Mar Gregorios was invited to speak at Princeton University in the US. The conference was filmed. He did not mince his words. At the podium, he warned from the outset that he was "not a politician but an archbishop ... I am here on behalf of religious people."

Yet he then meticulously deciphered the Syrian situation, proposing a real roadmap out of the crisis. "We must elect a new president, a leader capable of maintaining the situation in Syria and returning it to a safe, stable and democratic state," he said. In the audience, a professor asked him about the relationship between the clergy and the government. "Before March 2011, we praised the regime, the president. It was tradition ... [myself] included. But after, we couldn't imagine that in Syria, the bloodshed would change everything in people's lives," he replied.

He was "invited" to speak in front of a very different audience two weeks later. The speech was less confrontational. On Nov. 18 and 19, 2012 (five months before the abduction), the Syrian National Dialogue Conference was held in the hall of a grand hotel in Tehran by the Iranian Foreign Minister at the time. The name of the meeting? "No to violence... Yes to democracy and popular will." At the time, the Iranian regime – an ally of Damascus – was trying the diplomatic card. For the first time since the beginning of the conflict, it managed to bring together members of the opposition and representatives of the government.

Once again, the archbishop traded his homilies for a genuine political plea. "All Syrians – after this popular movement that has lasted for a year and eight months – hope to increase public freedoms even further," he said. "Allow me to be frank with you. Before denouncing the plans of the West, which threaten civil war, we must purify our visions." He then urged all parties to the conflict to work together towards a ceasefire and proposed several initiatives once again to stem the crisis. This speech from a member of the Syrian clergy in Iran was not insignificant. "Even before the war, he was advocating dialogue between all components of Syrian society and between political forces, those close to the regime as well as those of the opposition," related Sleiman Youssef.

He found his way to Damascus...

Archbishop Ibrahim believed he was protected because he knew he was respected and had support within the nomenklatura. "Since the beginning of the revolution, he has always refused to speak in Syrian media," said Éliaa. In foreign media, however, he spoke more regularly, but he was careful not to cross the line.

"Despite this, he received several warnings," recalled a close associate on condition of anonymity. It only took a sentence, a word, to be condemned. The increasing violence of the fighting pushed thousands of Christian families to flee to Lebanon or Europe. By April 2013, a third of this community of one and a half million souls had already left. Those who had no choice but to stay were tolerated on the condition that they submit to the regime. Almost all of their religious leaders interviewed by the Western press echoed the government's propaganda. "We were portrayed as radical Christian slaughterers. It scared them," said Abderrahmane Allaf, the lawyer and dissident who accompanied the prelates in rebel-held areas. Ibrahim, however, adopted a new posture that he defended with conviction. He found his way to Damascus.

'I warned him that he had gone too far'

On April 13, 2013, he dropped several 'bombs' in an interview with the BBC in Arabic. That day, a woman and her two sons were suffocated by sarin gas launched by the Syrian army. It was probably a first in Aleppo. The red line was crossed. But Mar Youhanna did not know it yet.

Nevertheless, he unleashed his thoughts in this interview of a few minutes with the British channel. In the face of the Damascus discourse, he affirmed that there was "no plan to kill Christians," that they "were not targeted, nor were the churches, but they suffered indiscriminate attacks."

The survival of Syrian Christians is not linked to the survival of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"I hold everyone responsible for these killings, this corruption. I do not only blame the opposition or the regime," he said, accusing the latter of not managing the crisis better. The prelate also expressed doubt about the official figures of the dead and wounded. He called on the government to "open its doors to the media so that they convey the true image of the tragedy suffered by the Syrians." But this sentence must have tipped the scales: "The situation in Syria is different from that in Iraq ... the survival of Syrian Christians is not linked to the survival of President Bashar al-Assad's regime."

In his entourage, these statements caused terror, while pro-Assad trolls reveled on social media. "We were terrified of possible repercussions. We couldn't understand how he could say that. Some advised him to go into hiding until things calmed down," recounted his nephew Jamil Diarbakerli, executive director of the Assyrian Observer for Human Rights, an NGO based in Sweden. "I warned him that he had gone too far. He replied, 'It's too late,'" confided a Syrian friend from the opposition, speaking under anonymity.

It took nine days for the axe to fall. When news of his abduction with Archbishop Yazigi spread, several close associates interviewed by L'Orient Today immediately "realized that he was no longer alive." "I even expected it to happen sooner," lamented Ayman Abdelnour, president of the opposition NGO Syrian Christians for Peace.

"My uncle was going to become the next Syriac Orthodox Patriarch. The regime was probably not reassured to see someone like him reach such a position because he did not bow down," suggested Jamil Diarbakerli, who never believed in the Islamist track.

In such a silenced country, where the mukhabarat (intelligence service) infiltrate all strata of society even within the opposition, the state nevertheless failed to solve this case. But did it even want to?

After a sham investigation, there has been radio silence. After the abduction, Fouad Éliaa spent over a week searching the outskirts, on the opposition side. "I was called asking what I was doing. I told them I wasn't afraid to return to Aleppo, but that I wanted to continue the search a little longer," he said. Upon his return, about 15 days later, he was questioned by the air force intelligence. "I had a ... two-minute interrogation. They accused me of being an accomplice of the kidnappers and then let me go," he recalled.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Ibrahim's apartment and office at the archdiocese and St. Ephrem Cathedral, were ransacked. "They searched everything looking for 'evidence' that could have compromised the true sponsors of his disappearance," recounted his nephew.

In Aleppo, Qamishli and elsewhere, this abduction marked a turning point for Christians. "It pushed many of us to consider emigrating," lamented writer Sleiman Youssef. "An important Levantine cleric told me during his visit to Sweden that he refused to discuss the subject to avoid facing the same fate," said Jamil Diarbakerli. "He's not the only one who told me that." At the Sofitel on April 17, during the commemoration of their 11 years of disappearance, organized by the Orthodox Encounter and the Syriac League, the speakers — bishops and political figures — did not mention the Syrian government once, but blamed the "Westerners who did nothing to shed light on the matter."

"Over the years, I have observed that everything has been done to stifle the matter and try to close the chapter. I am surprised that none of the ecclesiastical authorities dared to call for the opening of an international investigation, " he deplored. No official representative of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches wished to speak as part of this investigation.

The representatives of the Syrian clergy are still convinced that they made the rational choice by supporting Bashar al-Assad rather than siding with the oppressed. Whether they are Christians, Druze, or Muslims, the Assads eliminated all forms of political opposition, in Syria and Lebanon, for several decades. A section of the mukhabarat is even dedicated to controlling religious institutions. '"It is them who meddle in the elections of religious figures to key positions, and who go so far as to write the Sunday sermon of the patriarch or the sermons of the mufti," explained Georges Sabra.

'Turning the page'?

After years of hoping for their return, the Churches made the painful decision to replace their archbishops. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was the first to do so in October 2021 by appointing Ephrem Maalouli in Boulos Yazigi's place. In September 2022, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate appointed Boutros Kassis as the successor to Youhanna Ibrahim. "These decisions were seen as turning the page. But this matter does not die. It has become a symbol," said Marwan Abou Fadel, Secretary General of the Orthodox Encounter.

No one seems to believe they could still be alive. But no one dares to make it official either. "I think they are dead. We have had some information that they have been killed," confessed Abbas Ibrahim. What information? The former head of the SG no longer responded. Then he continued, "By whom? How? No one knows."

"They are no longer of this world."

A few months after launching a petition in 2017 calling on the US to help free the two archbishops, Joseph Hakim, president of the International Christian Union, claims to have received a message from a source close to the US administration. "They tell me that they were killed 'a long time ago' and that it was useless to waste our time," he told L'Orient Today.

This conversation would conclude the searches of another envoy sent by the Eastern Churches. In 2018, as he got a little too close to a lead, a Syrian friend came to deliver a message to him. The envoy recounted this conversation years later to L'Orient Today on condition of anonymity. 

At that time, Syria was still in turmoil. Some 350,000 people had died, and tens of thousands had disappeared. Six million lived in exile and almost as many were displaced. Resurrected by its Russian godfather and Iranian ally, Damascus managed to reconquer Ghouta and then Deraa, the cradle of the revolution and its tomb. The regime had regained strength. It felt out of the woods.

One evening, two prominent figures feasted in an upscale restaurant in the Syrian capital. They drank a little too much. One of them confided, "Go tell the Lebanese to stop their searches. They are no longer of this world," said this Baathist bigwig to his stunned interlocutor. "Youhanna Ibrahim had too loose a tongue..." he finally admitted.