Armed men kidnap attorney general in central Hama

DAMASCUS, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- An armed group kidnapped the Syrian attorney general Monday morning at the central province of Hama, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.

Judge Adnan Bakkour, along with his driver and a guard, was kidnapped on his way to work on the Kafar Nabouza road and taken to an unknown destination, according to SANA.

Seven gunmen riding a Toyota car and a Mazda minibus attacked the judge and took him at gunpoint, SANA quoted a police source as saying.

Hama, a city with a population of 800,000, has a storied history of rebellion against the Syrian leadership and was a stronghold of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which staged a bloody rebellion in 1982.

Syria has been in unrest since mid-March when anti-government protests broke out in the southern province of Daraa and spread to other cities.

The Syrian authorities blamed the unrest on "armed groups and foreign conspiracy," and stressed that it would track down gunmen who have intimidated people and damaged public and private properties.