SOHR: With Help from Hezbollah, Syrian Officers Arrested for ‘Collaborating with Israel’
The Syrian air and military intelligence kicked off a wide wave of arrests against regime officers in Damascus and Aleppo on charges of “collaborating with hostile parties”, revealed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The crackdown was launched in early September.
Sources said dozens of the detained were held on charges of collaborating with and sending coordinates over to Israel, which had recently struck airports in Aleppo and Damascus.
The detained include officers from the air defense and others in the military units that are active at the two airports. Others were held in Masyaf and Tartus.
The arrests were made with the help of the Lebanese Hezbollah party, whose intelligence agents are active in Syria.
Some of the detained were released after interrogation. Twenty-seven remain held.
Director of the Observatory, Rami Abdulrahman, said that out of the 27 detainees, eleven hold the rank of officer.
Sources added that civilians were also targeted in the crackdown.
The Observatory confirmed the arrest of 15 people in wake of an Israeli raid on an airport on August 31. Some have since been released.
Israel launched a missile attack on Tuesday night targeting Aleppo’s airport for the second time in a week and all flights were diverted to the capital Damascus.
The strike tore large craters in three spots on the facility’s runway, satellite images analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press show.
Israel also launched airstrikes at Aleppo airport last week, damaging its runway and, according to the Observatory, a warehouse that likely stored a shipment of Iranian rockets.
Last week’s strike tore a hole in the runway and also damaged a structure close to the military side of the airfield, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed.
On June 10, Israeli airstrikes that struck Damascus International Airport caused significant damage to infrastructure and runways and rendered the main runway unserviceable. The airport opened two weeks later following renovation work.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Source: Asharq Al-Awsat