Syrian Interior Ministry Arrests Lieutenant General Wajih Ali Al-Abdullah in Damascus

The Syrian Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of Lieutenant General Wajih Ali Al-Abdullah, who for 13 years held the position of Director of the Military Affairs Office for the deposed President Bashar al-Assad.

“On Saturday evening, the Syrian Ministry of Interior announced the arrest of Lieutenant General Wajih Ali Al-Abdullah, who for 13 years held the post of Director of the Military Affairs Office for the deposed President Bashar al-Assad”

Al-Jazeera Net

The arrest was carried out by internal security units in cooperation with the Anti-Terrorism Directorate in a "swift security operation" that the ministry said resulted in Al-Abdullah’s detention.

Al-Jazeera Net

The ministry said investigations showed Al-Abdullah held his duties in the Military Affairs Office between 2005 and 2018, a period it described as the "bloodiest" in the country’s history.

The operation was described as part of a series of crackdowns by Syrian authorities against former officials and military personnel accused of involvement in abuses during the years of the Syrian uprising spanning 2011 to 2024.

The arrest was announced in Damascus, with the statement carried by the official Syrian news agency SANA.

The ministry statement said Al-Abdullah was regarded as "one of the pillars of the inner circle of the former regime," and it said he was responsible for coordinating "repressive practices and grave violations" against Syrian civilians during his time at the presidential palace.

Al-Jazeera Net reported that the ministry said internal security units, in cooperation with the Counter-Terrorism Administration, carried out a "swift security operation" that resulted in the arrest of Al-Abdullah.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi

The same Al-Jazeera Net account linked the arrest to other detentions, saying that yesterday Brigadier General Khardal Ahmed Dioub was detained over alleged involvement in the chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta in the Damascus countryside.

Al-Jazeera Net also said the detention of Khardal Ahmed Dioub was preceded by the detention of Amjad Youssef, described as the primary accused in the massacre of the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus in 2013.

The Interior Ministry’s framing in the reports placed the arrest within a broader effort by the new Syrian administration to tighten security and pursue former regime elements accused of involvement in abuses against civilians during the years of the revolution spanning 2011 to 2024.

The reports tied Al-Abdullah’s role to a specific tenure, with the ministry saying he held the Military Affairs Office between 2005 and 2018, and describing those years as the "bloodiest" in the country’s history.

“In a decisive security blow aimed at dismantling what remains of the central nervous system of the deposed regime, one of the most prominent figures who ran the regime’s apparatus of repression for many years from behind the closed doors of the presidential palace fell”

Mojaz al-Anba'a

The القدس العربي account said the operation comes as part of a series of crackdowns against former officials and military personnel accused of involvement in abuses during the years of the Syrian uprising, and it placed the new Syrian administration’s work within a timeline spanning 2011 to 2024.

Al-Jazeera Net similarly stated that the new Syrian administration is working to tighten security and pursue former regime elements accused of involvement in abuses against civilians during the years of the revolution spanning 2011 to 2024.

The موجز الأنباء article described the arrest as a decisive security blow aimed at dismantling what it called the central nervous system of the deposed regime, and it said the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of Brigadier General Wajih Ali Al-Abdullah.

It also stated that the arrest is part of a tightly woven sequence to hunt war criminals, referencing earlier disclosures of arrests including Brigadier General Khardal Ahmed Dioub and Brigadier Sahl Fajr Hassan.