Syrian authorities arrest ex-officer accused of chemical weapons crimes

Syrian authorities have arrested a former officer they say was a chemical weapons specialist in charge of sarin gas depots and chemical weapons manufacturing in the regime of ousted former President Bashar al-Assad.

The Interior Ministry named him on Wednesday as former colonel Ahmed Habib Ali, calling him “a chemical weapons expert”.

Ali “was responsible for sarin gas storage facilities and chemical manufacturing within Unit 417”, a chemical weapons site near Damascus, the ministry said, adding that he was “one of the officers who supervised the manufacture of about 20 bombs loaded with sarin gas, each weighing 250kg [550lb], which were used in attacks targeting Syrian cities and towns in 2013 and 2017”.

His arrest comes just a week after Syria was reinstated into the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The watchdog had stripped Syria’s voting rights in 2021, after finding its air force used sarin and chlorine gas on its own people.

The deadliest attack came in August 2013. The Syrian army was accused of gassing rebel-held areas, killing more than 1,400 men, women and children, according to US intelligence and rights groups.

At the height of the civil war, and facing the threat of US strikes, al-Assad’s government agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal. Despite that pledge, Damascus was accused of four more sarin and chlorine attacks on opposition towns between 2014 and 2017.

Ali’s detention is part of a wider series of arrests of al-Assad-era officals. In April, Syria’s judiciary opened public trials for former officials, with some charges amounting to war crimes tied to the 2011 uprising and its violent suppression.

Since al-Assad’s fall in December 2024, authorities have arrested dozens of people over crimes committed during the 13-year civil war.