Syria arrests nine former Assad-era pilots

Syrian authorities say nine former pilots, including three generals, who are accused of having taken part in lethal bombings of towns and villages under the former rule of Bashar al-Assad, have been arrested.

For more than 13 years of a civil war that claimed over half a million lives, Syrian forces relentlessly shelled areas held by the rebels before al-Assad was toppled in December 2024 and the current Islamist government came to power.

Following a series of operations in Latakia in the country’s west, the Internal Security Forces arrested nine former military pilots “involved in war crimes against the Syrian people… in several regions,” news agency SANA reports, citing authorities.

Among them are generals Menhel Anwar Saleh, Sami Ibrahim Mahmoud, and Ghayath Ali Rehye.

“Their crimes caused a large number of casualties… and inflicted extensive damage on towns and villages, in addition to displacing residents and destroying homes and civilian infrastructure,” SANA adds.

Since al-Assad was overthrown, Syria’s new Islamist authorities have arrested dozens of former security officials, and trials began in April.

Syrian authorities said Monday they had arrested a former general accused of involvement in the bloody repression of protests in 2011 that sparked the country’s civil war and the 1982 Hama massacre.

Syria sentenced Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and five other security officials to death in absentia in August for atrocities committed during the civil war, the first such ruling under the new authorities.

The former president fled Syria as his government fell and is believed to be living in Russia.