Syrian Regime Detains Criminal Involved in Tadamon Massacre

 A still image from the leaked video showing Amjad Youssef executing a civilian man after pushing him into the pre-dug mass grave (New Lines Magazine)
A still image from the leaked video showing Amjad Youssef executing a civilian man after pushing him into the pre-dug mass grave (New Lines Magazine)
TT

Syrian Regime Detains Criminal Involved in Tadamon Massacre

 A still image from the leaked video showing Amjad Youssef executing a civilian man after pushing him into the pre-dug mass grave (New Lines Magazine)
A still image from the leaked video showing Amjad Youssef executing a civilian man after pushing him into the pre-dug mass grave (New Lines Magazine)

The Syrian regime detained Amjad Youssef, an officer in the Syrian security forces, who massacred dozens of Syrians and raped dozens of women in the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus, according to a report issued Monday by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

“The Syrian regime is now keeping Youssef in custody,” the Network said.

However, it added that the detention process was not carried out according to a judicial warrant based on a specific charge, explaining that Youssef has not been referred to the judiciary and that the Syrian regime has not issued any information indicating his arrest.

At the end of April 2022, New Lines, a magazine specialized in the Middle East affairs, published an investigation revealing that Youssef was working for Military Intelligence’s District Branch, also known as Branch 227 and was responsible for the arrest, torture and killing of thousands in the Tadamon neighborhood.

Youssef had confessed to the mass killing.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, founder and chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Syrian regime would not have detained Amjad Youssef if regime bodies had not been involved in this atrocity at the highest levels.

He said the Network received information that the Syrian regime had detained Youssef a month ago, following the publication of his confessions.

“This reveals that high-ranking regime officials are involved in these crimes and that Youssef is just a small part of an integrated system,” Abdul Ghany said.

He said the regime fears that more of those involved in similar crimes will be exposed, and, for this end, the regime might hide Amjad for life or kill him after he confessed his offenses.

Abdul Ghany also said that the regime did not arrest any security services involved in committing similar atrocious violations nor did it hold anyone accountable.

“The Syrian regime protects violators, and in some cases promotes them, so that they’re aware that their own fate is always linked to the regime’s fate, and defending it becomes an essential part of defending themselves,” he said.

According to the Network’s report, the Syrian regime has systematically used enforced disappearance as one of its most prominent tools of repression and terrorism aimed at crushing and annihilating political opponents simply for expressing their opinion.

It said Youssef and thousands of other members of the regime’s security services and army forces would not have committed such atrocious violations had they not been part of a deliberate policy implemented at the direct orders of Assad.

The report called on the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the fate of the forcibly disappeared persons in Syria and to act to end torture and deaths inside Syrian regime detention centers.

The Syrian Network report also raised concern over the fate of 87,000 people documented as being forcibly disappeared in regime prisons, which may be similar to that suffered by the victims in al Tadamun neighborhood.

It showed that the Syrian regime has detained, and continues to detain, at least 131,469 of the people arrested since March 2011, with 86,792 of this number classified as forcibly disappeared persons, including 1,738 children and 4,986 women.



Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
TT

Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb

An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated two women in their 50s who were wounded in northern Israel.

It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.