Two released hostages in Syria overheard captor's blaming rebels for chemical attacks

An Italian journalist and a Belgian writer who were held hostage in Syria for five months have claimed that they overheard a conversation suggesting that rebel forces were behind a chemical weapon attack on Damascus and not President Assad's army.

Domenico Quirico and Pierre Piccinin de Prata were kidnapped while working in the war torn country in April. The pair were released on Sunday night and have now said that they heard a conversation between their captors in English on Skype in which they allegedly revealed that rebels launched the attack to prompt Western forces to intervene.

Quirico, a veteran reporter for La Stampa daily with vast experience of reporting on conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, told the newspaper: 'In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily. Read more >>

Revealed: Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

*Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism 
*Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
*Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
*Company says it is legally compelled to comply

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. Read more >>