Who was in ousted Syrian President Assad’s interior circle and the place are they now?

BEIRUT (AP) — After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officers and members of his dreaded intelligence and safety providers seem to have melted away. Activists say a few of them have managed to flee the nation whereas others went to cover of their hometowns.

For greater than 5 a long time, the Assad household has dominated Syria with an iron grip, locking up those that dared query their energy within the nation’s infamous prisons, the place rights teams say inmates have been commonly tortured or killed.

The chief of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group — which led anti-government fighters who compelled Assad from energy — has vowed to carry those that carried out such abuses to justice.

“We will go after them in our nation,” mentioned HTS chief Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was beforehand often known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani. He added that the group can even ask international international locations at hand over any suspects.

But discovering these answerable for abuses might show tough.

Some 8,000 Syrian residents have entered Lebanon by means of the Masnaa border crossing in latest days, in keeping with two Lebanese safety officers and a judicial official, and about 5,000 have left the neighboring nation by means of Beirut’s worldwide airport. The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to launch the data.

Most of these are presumed to be common individuals, and Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi mentioned earlier this week that no Syrian official entered Lebanon by means of a authorized border crossing.

In an obvious effort to forestall members of Assad’s authorities from escaping, the safety officers mentioned a Lebanese officer who was in command of Masnaa was ordered to go on trip due to his hyperlinks to Assad’s brother.

But Rami Abdurrhaman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says a number of senior officers have nonetheless made it to neighboring Lebanon utilizing journey paperwork with faux names.

Here’s a take a look at Assad and a few of the officers in his interior circle.

Bashar Assad

The Western-educated ophthalmologist initially raised hopes that he can be in contrast to his strongman father, Hafez, when he took energy in 2000, together with releasing political prisoners and permitting for a extra open discourse.

But when protests of his rule erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to brutal techniques to crush dissent. As the rebellion grew to become an outright civil conflict, he unleashed his navy to blast opposition-held cities, with assist from allies Iran and Russia.

He has fled to Moscow, in keeping with Russian state media.

Maher Assad

The youthful brother of the ousted president was the commander of the 4th Armored Division, which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, along with working its personal detention facilities. He is beneath U.S. and European sanctions. He disappeared over the weekend, and Abdurrhaman mentioned he made it to Russia.

Last 12 months, French authorities issued a world arrest warrant for Maher Assad, alongside along with his brother and two military generals, for alleged complicity in conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity, together with in a 2013 chemical assault on rebel-held Damascus suburbs.

Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk

Mamlouk was a safety adviser to Assad and former head of the intelligence providers. He is needed in Lebanon for 2 explosions within the northern metropolis of Tripoli in 2012 that killed and wounded dozens.

Mamlouk can also be wished in France after a courtroom convicted him and others in absentia of complicity in conflict crimes and sentenced them to life in jail. The trial centered on the officers’ function within the 2013 arrest in Damascus of a Franco-Syrian man and his son and their subsequent torture and killing.

Abdurrahman mentioned Mamlouk fled to Lebanon, and it’s not clear if he’s nonetheless within the nation beneath the safety of Hezbollah.

Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan

Al-Hassan was the commander of the twenty fifth Special Missions Forces Division and later grew to become the pinnacle of the Syrian Special Forces, which have been key to most of the authorities’s battlefield victories within the long-running civil conflict, together with in Aleppo and the jap suburbs of Damascus that lengthy held off Assad’s troops.

Al-Hassan is understood to have shut ties to Russia and was praised by Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout one in every of his visits to Syria. Al-Hassan’s whereabouts are usually not identified.

Maj. Gen. Hussam Luka

Luka, head of the General Security Directorate intelligence service, is just not well-known among the many wider public however has performed a significant function within the crackdown in opposition to the opposition, primarily within the central metropolis of Homs that was dubbed the “capital of the Syrian revolt.”

Luka has been sanctioned by the U.S. and Britain for his function within the crackdown. It’s not clear the place he’s.

Maj. Gen. Qahtan Khalil

Khalil, whose whereabouts are additionally unknown, was head of the Air Force Intelligence service and is extensively often known as the “Butcher of Daraya” for allegedly main a 2012 assault on a Damascus suburb of the identical title that killed a whole bunch of individuals.

Other officers

— Retired Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan, former head of the Air Force Intelligence service, can also be suspected of bearing accountability for the assault in Daraya. Hassan was amongst these convicted in France this 12 months together with Mamlouk.

— Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Abbas and Maj. Gen. Bassam Merhej al-Hassan, head of Bashar Assad’s workplace and the person in command of his safety, are accused of human rights violations.