Syrian authorities arrest ex-officer accused of chemical weapons crimes

Former colonel Ahmed Habib Ali is accused of supervising the manufacture of sarin state bombs.

Syrian authorities person arrested a erstwhile serviceman they accidental was a chemic weapons specializer successful complaint of sarin state depots and chemic weapons manufacturing successful the authorities of ousted erstwhile President Bashar al-Assad.

The Interior Ministry named him connected Wednesday arsenic erstwhile colonel Ahmed Habib Ali, calling him “a chemic weapons expert”.

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Ali “was liable for sarin state retention facilities and chemic manufacturing wrong Unit 417”, a chemic weapons tract adjacent Damascus, the ministry said, adding that he was “one of the officers who supervised the manufacture of astir 20 bombs loaded with sarin gas, each weighing 250kg [550lb], which were utilized successful attacks targeting Syrian cities and towns successful 2013 and 2017”.

His apprehension comes conscionable a week aft Syria was reinstated into the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The watchdog had stripped Syria’s voting rights successful 2021, aft uncovering its aerial unit utilized sarin and chlorine state connected its ain people.

The deadliest onslaught came successful August 2013. The Syrian service was accused of gassing rebel-held areas, sidesplitting much than 1,400 men, women and children, according to US quality and rights groups.

At the tallness of the civilian war, and facing the menace of US strikes, al-Assad’s authorities agreed to manus implicit its chemic arsenal. Despite that pledge, Damascus was accused of 4 much sarin and chlorine attacks connected absorption towns betwixt 2014 and 2017.

Ali’s detention is portion of a wider bid of arrests of al-Assad-era officals. In April, Syria’s judiciary opened nationalist trials for erstwhile officials, with immoderate charges amounting to warfare crimes tied to the 2011 uprising and its convulsive suppression.

Since al-Assad’s autumn successful December 2024, authorities person arrested dozens of radical implicit crimes committed during the 13-year civilian war.