Syria arrests Assad-era general accused in crackdowns

Syrian authorities said Monday they arrested former Major General Mohammed Ali Durgham, an Assad-era officer accused of involvement in the repression of 2011 protests and linked by authorities to the 1982 Hama massacre.

Security forces described Durgham as a prominent officer under former president Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in 2024. They accused him of issuing direct orders for his units to fire on unarmed demonstrators in the Damascus countryside after anti-Assad protests began in 2011.

Durgham was a field commander in the army's Fourth Division, led by Assad's brother Maher al-Assad, from 2009 to 2013. Human Rights Watch in 2011 quoted a Syrian army defector as saying Durgham was among generals who ordered troops to shoot at protesters in and around Damascus. Durgham has been under European Union sanctions since 2012.

Authorities also said Durgham had started as a squad commander in the Defence Brigades during the 1982 events in Hama. On February 2, 1982, then-president Hafez al-Assad launched a crackdown in the central Syrian city against an armed Muslim Brotherhood revolt. The death toll from 27 days of violence has never been formally established, with estimates usually ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 and some higher.

Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on the 2011 protest movement turned into a 13-year civil war that killed more than half a million people. Since his overthrow in December 2024, Syria's new Islamist authorities have arrested dozens of former security officials, and trials began in April.

In August, Syria sentenced Bashar al-Assad, Maher al-Assad and five other security officials to death in absentia for atrocities committed during the civil war, the first such ruling under the new authorities.