Suspect in Syria Assad-era massacre ‘abducted’ from Lebanon, says official

A Lebanese security official tells AFP that a Turkish-Syrian paramilitary chief who was allied with ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was “abducted” from Lebanon by Syrian and Turkish intelligence services.

The source says Lebanese authorities had not been informed of the operation, after the Syrian state news agency SANA yesterday reported the arrest of Aly Kayali, known by the alias Mihrac Ural.

Kayali was the prime suspect in the mass execution of at least 248 people in the predominantly Sunni Muslim towns of Banias and Bayda in 2013 during Syria’s civil war, according to Human Rights Watch.

A Syrian security source had told AFP that Kayali, who is of Turkish origin but was naturalized in Syria, was “apprehended in Lebanon during a security operation coordinated with the Lebanese side.”

But the Lebanese security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, tells AFP that Lebanese authorities “were not informed” of the operation.

“Members of the Syrian and Turkish intelligence services abducted the man in Mansouriyeh,” a mountainous area near Beirut, the official says, adding he was brought to the “Syrian embassy in Lebanon then transferred to Syria.”