Damascus Arrests Drug Trafficker Linked to Maher al-Assad, Others Held Over Tadamon Massacre

Members of Syria's security forces. (Idlib Governorate)
Members of Syria's security forces. (Idlib Governorate)
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Damascus Arrests Drug Trafficker Linked to Maher al-Assad, Others Held Over Tadamon Massacre

Members of Syria's security forces. (Idlib Governorate)
Members of Syria's security forces. (Idlib Governorate)

Security forces in the Damascus countryside announced the arrest of Shadi Adel Mahfouz, describing him as one of the individuals involved in recent attacks on security forces in the coastal region.

Mahfouz was reportedly employed by the ousted regime’s Military Intelligence Branch 277 and was responsible for recruitment on behalf of Military Security.

Security forces also arrested two suspects linked to the 2013 massacre in the Tadamon district of Damascus: Kamel Sharif Abbas and Maher Hadeed.

Hadeed, a member of the National Defense Forces, is accused of committing additional war crimes against Syrian civilians. Authorities suspect a connection between Hadeed and Amjad Youssef, the primary suspect in the Tadamon massacre.

The arrests follow just over a month after Syrian security forces captured three individuals involved in the 2013 Tadamon massacre. One of the suspects confessed to killing more than 500 people in the Tadamon district at the start of the revolution against the former regime.

The massacre took place on Nasreen Street in Tadamon, near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus.

It remained undiscovered for nearly nine years until footage surfaced in April 2022, published by the Guardian. The video revealed Syrian regime forces executing 41 civilians, including seven women and several children.

In related developments, local media sources reported the arrest of Mohannad Naaman, a close associate of Maher al-Assad and senior officers in the Fourth Division.

Naaman, originally from Harasta in the Damascus countryside, is accused of overseeing one of the major captagon pill production sites in both the Damascus countryside and along Syria’s coastal region, including a ship anchored off Syria’s shores.



Israeli Fire Kills at Least 44 People in Gaza, Hits Police Station

A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Israeli Fire Kills at Least 44 People in Gaza, Hits Police Station

A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel's military said it had struck a command center of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.
The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident, that it attacked a command and control center operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which militants used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.
It accused Palestinian militant groups of exploiting civilians and civil properties for military purposes, an allegation Hamas and other factions deny.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday's death toll to 44, Reuters reported.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City had become non-operational, a day after an Israeli strike hit the upper part of the building, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the facility's solar power panel system.
No one was killed. There was no Israeli comment on the incident.
Gaza's health system has been devastated by Israel's 18-month-old military campaign, launched in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, putting many of the territory's hospitals out of action, killing medics, and reducing crucial supplies.
Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.