After the assassination of Mufti of Damascus and its countryside | Regime security services arrest 12 persons from Qudsaya in Damascus countryside

Rural Damascus- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:

Local sources have informed the Syrian Observatory that regime security branches arrested some 12 people from the city of Qudsaya, and took them to their security headquarters in the capital Damascus in order to interrogate them about the assassination of the Mufti of Damascus and its countryside Sheikh “Adnan al-Afiouni”, who had close ties to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and was assassinated on October 22, after an IED exploded in his car in the city of Qudsaya in Damascus countryside.

According to Observatory sources, two young men close to Sheikh Al-Afiouni, who were attending al-Sheikh’s religious classes at mosques in Qudsaya, were among the arrested people.

In addition to the arrest of a member of the reconciliation committee in the city of Qudsaya, who is considered close to al-Afiouni.  

Meanwhile, regime security services have confiscated a personal laptop of a member of the reconciliation committee.

Since the death of the Mufti of Damascus and its countryside, the city of Qudsaya has been witnessing a state of security tension, with the deployment of temporary checkpoints inside the city’s neighbourhoods, amid tightening security measures on the movement of passers-by.

On October 22, SOHR sources said that the Mufti of Damascus and its countryside has died of his wounds he sustained shortly after an IED exploded near “al-Sahaba mosque” in the city of Qudsaya in Damascus countryside.

The Mufti had very close ties with the head of the Syrian regime and its security services, and had become a high-profile figure in striking most of the reconciliation deals of Damascus countryside with the regime.

The Syrian Observatory has just monitored an explosion in the city of Qudsaya in Damascus countryside, caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) near “al-Sahaba mosque” in the city, which injured the head of the reconciliation committee in the city of Qudsaya and the Mufti of Damascus countryside.

The Mufti of Damascus and countryside, under the guidance of the head of the regime Bashar al-Assad, assumed his duties in May 2019 and took over the management of the “Al-Sham’s Islamic Centre for countering Terrorism and Extremism” in the capital, Damascus.

The centre includes departments for training imams and preachers, Islamic sciences, monitoring and processing of extremist ideas, a section for countering extremist ideology and another for scientific research.