World Bulletin / News Desk 

Al Qaeda's official Syrian wing, the Nusra Front, kidnapped 300 Kurdish men in the country's north, thought to be members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish official in Syria said on Monday.

"A group of 300 people on five coaches and a mini-bus coming from Afrin were kidnapped at a checkpoint as they went to Aleppo to collect their salaries," said Newaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The kidnapping was confirmed by a second official from the PYD, the main Kurdish party in Syria, and a journalist in Afrin, who said the women in the group had been freed but the men and children taken.

The PYD officials accused Nusra Front of being behind the kidnapping, but Abdul Rahman and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group said it remained unclear which group was responsible.

The Observatory reported similar details on the kidnapping, but said it was not immediately clear how many people were being held.

The Observatory said the captors had demanded, through the released women, that three men arrested by authorities in Afrin be freed.

There was no immediate confirmation of those demands from PYD officials or residents of Afrin, which is under Kurdish control.