Assad-era chemical weapons expert arrested in Syria

A former army officer said by the Syrian authorities to be a chemical weapons expert has been arrested, Asharq Al-Awsat and agencies report on July 15^th.

Authorities claim that the officer arrested, Colonel Ahmed Habib Ali, was “a chemical weapons expert” during President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. They also maintain that he was “responsible for sarin gas storage facilities and chemical manufacturing within” a major storage facility located near Damascus, Syria’s capital.

Syria’s interior ministry assert that Ali “one of the officers who supervised the manufacture of about 20 bombs loaded with sarin gas, each weighing 250 kilograms, which were used in attacks targeting Syrian cities and towns in 2013 and 2017”.

This arrest of a key official’s alleged complicity in chemical weapons usage comes just days after Syria had its voting rights reinstated at the global chemical watchdog Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

After the evidence of the Assad government’s war crimes through the use of chlorine gas  against its own citizens came to light, Syria had its voting rights removed from the OPCW.

In August 2013, US intelligence and rights groups accused the Syrian army of deploying chemical weapons which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 men, women and children. To reduce the chances of US strikes on Syria,  Assad’s government agreed to cooperate and relinquish control of its chemical weapons.

Damascus was later accused of the use of sarin and chlorine gas in opposition faction towns during four attacks  between 2014 and 2017.

Trials for the war crimes committed during the Syrian civil war began in April 2026 with dozens arrested since the fall of Assad’s regime in 2024. Various charges brought against former army officer date back to the war crimes committed in 2011 with the brutal suppression of protestors.

Asharq al-Awsat plus agencies, Maghrebi.org