A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad torn in Aleppo, northern Syria, on Nov. 30, 2024. (Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/ AFP)
BEIRUT — Government Commissioner to the Military Tribunal Claude Ghanem on Thursday charged 12 people in connection with a network linked to the former Syrian regime of the Assad family, which was dismantled in early September, and referred them to First Military Investigative Judge Ghada Abu Alwan.
The network is suspected of involvement in plans for an attack on the Syrian coast. It allegedly smuggled people and weapons across the Lebanese-Syrian border in northern Lebanon for use at a military training camp in the Bekaa. The network is reportedly run from Russia by a former officer of the old Syrian regime, while a Hezbollah official known as Abu Ala’ allegedly supervised the training camp.
Abu Ala’, who was the subject of an arrest warrant issued last week by Ahmad Rami al-Hajj, the head of the Court of Cassation’s Public Prosecution, remains at large, along with six others charged with “terrorism” by Ghanem. Most are identified only by their nicknames, including Hajj Abu Hussein and Hajj Samer.
At least one of these individuals, known as “Nouri the Syrian,” is believed to be a Syrian national. The five others charged and believed to be affiliated with the network were arrested earlier this month. They include an intelligence colonel from the former regime and two Lebanese brothers: one, a State Security agent who had served as an MPs’s personal bodyguard, and the other, a former Internal Security Forces (ISF) agent who was dismissed several years ago.
According to our information, the MP’s former bodyguard is currently being prosecuted only for “violating military regulations.”
Men working with his brother at an orchard he managed had gone to the State Security agent’s home to tell him that their employer appeared to have been kidnapped. The agent reportedly told them that he had been arrested by security forces, prompting the workers to warn him that security forces might search a warehouse on the orchard property and seize weapons stored there.
The State Security agent then allegedly threw the weapons into a river. This constitutes a violation because he was not authorized to dispose of them without prior approval from the State Security Directorate, a judicial source told L’Orient-Le Jour.
