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30-12-2024
BEIRUT: Lebanon expelled around 70 Syrian officers and soldiers on Saturday, returning them to Syria after they crossed into the country illegally via informal routes, a Lebanese security official and a war monitor said.
Many senior Syrian officials and people close to the former ruling family of Bashar al-Assad fled the country to neighboring Lebanon after Assad’s regime was toppled on Dec 8.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based organization with sources in Syria, and the Lebanese security official said Syrian military personnel of various ranks had been sent back via Lebanon’s northern Arida crossing.
SOHR and the security official said the returnees were detained by Syria’s new ruling authorities after crossing the border.
The new administration has been undertaking a major security crackdown in recent days on what they say are “remnants” of the Assad regime.
Several of the cities and towns concerned, including in Homs and Tartous provinces, are near the porous border with Lebanon.
The Lebanese security official said the Syrian officers and soldiers were found in a truck in the northern coastal city of Jbeil after an inspection by local officials.
Lebanese and Syrian government officials did not immediately respond to written requests for comment on the incident.
Reuters reported on Friday that Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of Assad charged in Switzerland with war crimes over the bloody suppression of a revolt in 1982, had flown out of Beirut to Dubai recently, as had “many members” of the Assad family.
Earlier this month, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said top Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban had flown out of Beirut after entering Lebanon legally.
Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad charged in Switzerland with war crimes over the bloody suppression of a revolt in 1982, has flown from Beirut to Dubai in recent days, two Lebanese security officials said on Friday.
The officials said that “many members” of the Assad family had travelled to Dubai from Beirut and others had stayed in Lebanon since Assad was toppled on Dec. 8. Lebanese authorities had not received Interpol requests to arrest them, including Rifaat, the officials said.
The UAE foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The Lebanese officials said they did not know if Rifaat or the other Assad family members intended to stay in Dubai or travel elsewhere.
Rifaat, in his late 80s, was brother to Assad’s father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, and led elite forces that crushed a 1982 Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama, killing more than 10,000 people. In 2022, the independent Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) monitoring group alleged that between 30,000 to 40,000 civilians had been killed in Hama.
Switzerland’s Attorney General’s Office has referred Rifaat al-Assad for trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over killings and torture in Hama, under the principle that all countries have jurisdiction over such crimes. He has denied responsibility. This month, Swiss judicial authorities said they had suggested the trial could be shelved due to his ill health. The 1982 Hama assault is often described as the model for Bashar al-Assad’s later crackdown on the rebellion that began in 2011 and toppled him this month. When rebels seized Hama on Dec. 6, their leader Ahmed al-Sharaa referred to it, saying they would “cleanse that wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years”. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
