A security raid to arrest an Assad-era official in a coastal Syrian area triggered clashes that killed one person on Monday, as Israeli forces carried out new incursions in the southwest.
Security forces announced that they had arrested Amer al-Hassan, the former head of State Security in the Latakia province under the former regime.
Hassan is accused of being complicit in a number of massacres and other war crimes in the Latakia province during the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted from power in December 2024.
Brig. Gen. Gaith Shahin and Colonel Nizar Shahin, accused of committing war crimes in Qusair and Palmyra, were detained alongside Hassan . They are the latest Assad-linked officials to be arrested.
Syrian state television quoted a security source as saying that Hassan was arrested during a security operation in the village of Baabda in the Jableh countryside, which then led to clashes.
Earlier on Monday, the state-run news agency SANA reported that a security officer was killed during clashes with "gunmen from the remnants of the former regime". More security personnel were injured.
Security forces entered Baabda early Monday morning "to arrest a former official from the ousted Assad regime" before the clashes broke out with several armed men in the village. An unconfirmed number of deaths were also reported among the gunmen.
The Syrian coastal region is considered the heartland of the Alawite community to which the Assad family belongs.
Since the regime was toppled, Syria has been rattled by instability in certain regions, with the government looking to regain sovereign control over the country, which has been left divided after 14 years of conflict.
In March last year, sectarian clashes in the coastal region resulted in more than a thousand deaths, mostly civilians. Forces linked to the government were accused of carrying out summary executions, with some perpetrators now being held accountable. Israeli forces abduct two men Since Assad’s regime was brought down in a lighting rebel offensive and the disgraced dictator fled to Russia, Israel has illegally occupied parts of southwest Syria and has expanded its security zone.
The Israeli military crossed a UN-administered buffer zone for the first time since the 1970s, capturing parts of the Quneitra province and the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.
It also conducted massive strikes, destroying what was left of the former Syrian army’s airpower.
Today, Israeli troops are stationed around 20 kilometres from the capital Damascus. Talks between the two countries continue but with no breakthrough.
In the latest incursion, Syria’s Al-Ikhbariya news channel said Israeli forces arrested two young Syrian men as they infiltrated the village of Bariqa in the Quneitra countryside at dawn. The New Arab could not verify who they were or if they were still in Israeli custody at the time of this report.
No comment was immediately issued by Syrian authorities.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa told Anadolu Agency in an interview last week that negotiations with Israel had not reached a dead end but were proceeding with great difficulty because of Israel’s insistence on remaining in Syrian territory.
Tel Aviv claims its security zone in Syria is to push back extremist elements and protect its border.