Part of their “hearts and minds” campaign.

BEIRUT (AP) — Shortly after the revolt against President Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011, Imad al-Souri quit his computer job to help the protests. He uploaded online videos of the marches and sneaked banned loudspeakers to demonstrators to amplify their voices calling for Assad’s downfall.

Not anymore.

The 28-year-old al-Souri recently fled to Turkey, fearing he would be killed or abducted by Islamic militants who are now the most powerful force in the rebellion and who are increasingly targeting those seen as opposed to their extremist ideologies. It’s not an idle fear — dozens of activists have been abducted by radicals and, like, al-Souri, dozens of those who shaped the initial uprising against Assad have fled. […]

It’s a depressing turn for anti-government activists. At the start of the uprising, they worked in secrecy because of Assad’s ruthless security services. Now they fear some of their once-presumed protectors: rebels who took up arms initially to defend protesters from the violent crackdown by Assad’s forces.

The trend was highlighted by two reports issued Thursday.

The rights group Amnesty International said in a report that one of the most powerful militant groups, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is running secret prisons in territory it controls, carrying out torture and summary killings.

Children as young as eight are held along with adults in seven ISIL-run detention facilities in Aleppo province in the north and Raqqa province in the east, it said. Many detainees are held for challenging ISIL’s rule, crimes like theft or for committing purported “crimes against Islam,” such as smoking cigarettes.

Also, a United Nations panel investigating human rights violations in Syria reported increasing hostage-taking operations by rebel groups, specifying ISIL — an act it described as a war crime. The panel also accused the Syrian government of possibly committing crimes against humanity — a more serious offense — for systematic disappearances of Syrians who are detained by government forces or pro-government militias and never heard from again.

Hardline Islamic rebels are casting a dark shadow over parts of the country where they have wrested power. Abductions of moderate religious figures, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders, journalists and activists have increased since the spring, according to more than dozen activists and officials from human rights organizations interviewed by The Associated Press.