About a dozen nuns held by rebels in Syria for more than three months have been released and are on their way to Damascus via Lebanon, a security source and church officials said yesterday.

A Lebanese security source said the nuns had been taken to the Lebanese town of Arsal earlier in the week and were headed to Syria yesterday accompanied by the head of a Lebanese security agency and a Qatari intelligence official.

The nuns went missing in December after Islamist fighters took the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula north of Damascus.

After being held in the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla in Maaloula, they were reportedly moved to the rebel-held town of Yabroud, about 20 kilometres to the north, which is now the focus of a government military operation.

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