Syria Arrests Former General Accused of Chemical Attack Involvement

Syria’s interior minister on Wednesday said it detained an Assad-era general accused of involvement in the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack. In a post on X, Anas Khattab said that “Adnan Abboud Hilweh, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Eastern Ghouta in 2013, is now in the custody of the Counter-Terrorism Department”, AFP reported. US intelligence says more than 1,000 people were killed with sarin nerve gas in the suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus, in 2013 during Syria’s civil war. The attack was attributed to the Syrian government under the rule of Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled in late 2024. The government at the time denied involvement and blamed opposition forces. Hilweh was one of three Syrian generals accused by the US State Department in 2022 of involvement in “gross violations of human rights, namely the flagrant denial of the right to life of at least 1,400 people in Ghouta”, banning them along with their immediate family from entering the country. Hilweh was sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom and other countries. Syria’s 13-year civil war killed more than half a million people and displaced millions of others. Tens of thousands of people disappeared, many into the country’s brutal prison system. Syria’s new authorities have repeatedly vowed to provide justice and accountability for Assad-era atrocities, while activists and the international community have emphasised the importance of transitional justice in the war-ravaged country. On Monday, a Syrian court conducted the first hearing in the trial of Assad, in absentia, and senior figures from his government, one of whom appeared in person. Former security official Atif Najib, a relative of Assad’s, was in the dock in handcuffs. Assad fled to Moscow with only a handful of confidants as opposition-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom reportedly went abroad or took refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority.