Syria Nabs American Blogger

Outspoken Syrian-American blogger Amina Arraf was grabbed on the street yesterday, someone claiming to be her cousin wrote on her blog. Araff wrote a blog entitled A Gay Girl in Damascus, which had spoken out in favor of the protest movement, according to MSNBC. A post yesterday from a woman calling herself Rania Ismail said that a friend had watched three men in their 20s grab Araff.

“Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father. One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad,” the post reads, referring to the the late brother of President Bashar Assad. So far the blog says there’s no word on precisely who took her or where she is. The 36-year-old Arraf is a Virginia native who holds dual citizenship, reports the New York Times. (More Syria stories.)