Syria says Kayali's 'arrest' in Lebanon was coordinated with Lebanese authorities

Syrian authorities have announced the arrest of a former paramilitary leader who is the main suspect in a massacre of nearly 250 civilians by Assad-allied forces during the country's civil war.

A Syrian security source told AFP that Ali Kayali was apprehended in Lebanon during an operation coordinated with Lebanese authorities. Lebanese media reports said Thursday that the man was “kidnapped” from his home in Lebanon's Mansourieh and that his wife and son were tied up by the culprits.

Lebanese authorities have yet to comment on the issue.

Syrian state news agency SANA said "intelligence services have arrested Ali Kayali, who also went by the name Mihrac Ural, the main suspect in the Banias massacre of 2013."

It said he "was attempting to flee across the border," without specifying to which country.

Kayali was a member of a paramilitary group that fought alongside former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's troops during the war.

In May 2013, government forces and their allies killed at least 248 people in mass executions in the predominantly Sunni Muslim towns of Bayda and Banias, located in the coastal province of Tartus, according to Human Rights Watch.

The monitor at the time described the killings as "one of the deadliest instances of mass executions in Syria's increasingly bloody conflict."

Syrian Justice Minister Mazhar Alwais wrote on X Thursday that the arrest "sends a clear message: there is no room in Syria for impunity for criminals; the rights of victims will not be lost, no matter how much time passes."

Syria and Lebanon have been trying to write a new chapter in their relations since Assad was deposed in late 2024 by an Islamist coalition, which has contributed to the weakening of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an Assad ally.

- Dozens arrested -

Lebanese authorities in September arrested a distant cousin of Assad, and earlier detained a former Syrian intelligence officer and several accomplices alleged to have planned attacks against forces of the new Syrian government.

In August, Beirut also extradited to Damascus a former general from the Assad era who is accused of crimes including murder and torture.

Syria's war began with pro-democracy protests in 2011 that were violently suppressed by the government. The protests quickly morphed into a complex armed conflict that drew in paramilitary forces, jihadists and foreign powers.

It ended with the ousting of Assad in a lightning offensive led by an Islamist rebel group that subsequently took power.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, the death tolls in Banias and Bayda came to around 400.

Kayali, originally from Turkey, served prison time in that country before fleeing in 1982 to settle in Syria, where he would end up founding a paramilitary force allied with Assad's government.

He married a relative of the Assad family and amassed a fortune, according to Turkish state media.

Kayali is also suspected of having planned, with the help of Assad's intelligence services, a double car bombing that killed 53 people in 2013 in southeastern Turkey, according to prosecution documents cited by Turkish state media.

In Syria, the new authorities have arrested dozens of former security officials since they took power in late 2024. Their trials began in April.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa's media adviser Ahmed Zeydan welcomed Kayali's arrest, describing him as "a criminal... who committed massacres during the Syrian war, including those in Bayda and Banias."

"Every murderous criminal will be hunted down," he said.