“Mustafa Hassan had only been in captivity for a few hours and was already planning his escape. After four days, he found his moment. While some of his fellow schoolboys distracted the religious teacher with questions, Hassan and a friend scaled a ladder on to the roof on the pretext of fetching water and raising a flag.

From there, they hopped on to the wall of the school, jumped down to the street and kept walking. Local people helped them get out of town. Soon they were back in this Kurdish-dominated town in northern Syria…

The kidnapping of 186 teenage boys in Syria on 30 May has gone largely unreported in the wider world, a curious omission given the outcry over the teenage girls in Nigeria. The abduction was no less sinister. The students needed to travel from the Kobani enclave on the Turkish border to Aleppo to take their exams, as required by Syria’s education system. The journey is perilous, but they reached Aleppo without incident. On the way home, however, a convoy of about 10 minibuses containing 186 boys aged 14-16 was stopped and taken to a religious school in Minbej, for training in the Qur’an and jihad. The vast majority are still there.”* The Young Turks hosts Ana Kasparian, Ben Mankiewicz (Turner Classic Movies), Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show), and John Iadarola (TYT University) break it down.

*Read more here from James Harkin / The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/186-kurdish-students-kidnapped-isis-syria