On Dec. 9, the Syrian human rights lawyer and founder of the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), Razan Zaitouneh, was kidnapped in the city of Duma (Eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus) with three other activists from the VDC: Samira al-Khalil, Wael Hamada and Nazim al-Hamadi. Their case threatens to be the umpteenth forgotten abduction of Syrian activists.

In Eastern Ghouta, what emerges from the reaction of activists and citizen journalists is their reluctance to explicitly accuse the chief suspect and the main local armed faction, the Army of Islam (Jaiysh al-Islam) led by Zahran Alloush. There is a shared belief that the minor brigades present in the area might be responsible for the episode and a common understanding — supported by the Army of Islam — that the importance of Zaitouneh's work has to be belittled.

All sides agree that the Syrian regime is unlikely to be accused of the abduction, even though it clearly reaps the benefits of such events. "The regime is the first to benefit from this incident: The [rebel] brigades lost their reputation," VDC spokesman Bassam al-Ahmad told Al-Monitor over Skype. 

Until now, the reputation of the local militias has indeed been featured by better relationships with the civil resistance in comparison with such relationships in other Syrian provinces. "Before this abduction, Eastern Ghouta was an example of positive relations between activists and armed factions, whose fighters are locals," said veteran political dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh in a phone interview. He is also the husband of Samira al-Khalil and spent three months in Duma in 2013. The sway of al-Qaeda factions such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) featuring the presence of foreign fighters is particularly limited here.