Syria detains Assad-era general accused of bloody crackdown on protests
Major-General Mohammed Ali Durgham is accused of links to 1982 Hama massacre and 2011 protest crackdown.
Syrian authorities have announced the detainment of an Assad-era general accused of taking part in a massacre and overseeing a bloody crackdown on protests.
The country’s Internal Security Forces said on Monday that they had arrested former Major-General Mohammed Ali Durgham, who is accused of partaking in the Hama massacre in 1982 and ordering the shooting of unarmed protesters in 2011.
The detainment is the latest in a series of arrests as Syria’s government – led by figures from the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that deposed former President Bashar Al-Assad in 2024 after decades of brutality – attempts to bring to justice those that ran his regime.
Durgham was a field commander in the army’s feared Fourth Division, commanded by Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad, between 2009 and 2013.