UK journalist: Syria rebels led me into death trap

LONDON (AP) — A British journalist claims that Syrian rebels set him up to die in a no man’s land near the Lebanese border, saying he believes they hoped he would be shot by government forces.

Channel 4 News’s chief correspondent Alex Thomson said in a blog post Friday that a rebel escort led him, his driver, and his translator to a dead end in “free-fire zone” around the town of Qusair.

He says it was “quite clear the rebels deliberately set us up to be shot by the Syrian Army,” adding that if he and his colleagues were shot by government forces then it would have been a propaganda coup for the rebels.

In an email, Thomson said there was “absolutely no way” that Monday’s incident was an accident.