LOS ANGELES: A former Syrian military official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse has been arrested in Los Angeles.
Samir Ousman Al-Sheikh, 72, was arrested last week at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges, specifically that he denied on his US visa and citizenship applications that he had ever carried out any abuse in Syria, according to a criminal complaint filed on July 9.
Al-Sheikh, who was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra prison, “provided materially false information on his visa application by falsely stating that he had not committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in extrajudicial killings, political killings, or other acts of violence,” the complaint states. Al-Sheikh has been a resident of Los Angeles since 2020.
Investigators were considering additional charges, according to court papers.
“This is the highest level Assad regime official arrested anywhere in the world, it is the highest regime official arrested in the United States for sure, if not the only one of his type,” Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said Wednesday. “This is a really big deal, it’s unprecedented.”
Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families about their fate. Many remain missing and are presumed to have died or been executed.
Other players in Syria’s civil war, now in its 14th year, have also been accused of abuse of detainees, including insurgent groups and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which guard suspected and convicted Islamic State members imprisoned in northeastern Syria.
The war, which has left nearly half a million people dead and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against the government of Bashar Assad in March 2011.
Syrian official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse arrested by US officials
https://arab.news/w39h6
Syrian official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse arrested by US officials
- Samir Ousman Al-Sheikh, 72, was arrested last week at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges
- Al-Sheikh, who was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra prison, ‘provided materially false information on his visa application’
Syrian government and SDF agree to de-escalate after Aleppo violence
- Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement
DAMASCUS: Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed to de-escalate on Monday evening in the northern city of Aleppo, after a wave of attacks that both sides blamed on each other left at least two civilians dead and several wounded.
Syria’s state news agency SANA, citing the defense ministry, said the army’s general command issued an order to stop targeting the SDF’s fire sources. The SDF said in a statement later that it had issued instructions to stop responding to attacks by Syrian government forces following de-escalation contacts.
HIGHLIGHTS
• SDF and Syrian government forces blame each other for Aleppo violence
• Turkiye threatens military action if SDF fails integration deadline
• Aleppo schools and offices closed on Tuesday following the violence
The Syrian health ministry said two people were killed and several were wounded in shelling by the SDF on residential neighborhoods in the city. The injuries included two children and two civil defense workers. The violence erupted hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a visit to Damascus that the SDF appeared to have no intention of honoring a commitment to integrate into the state’s armed forces by an agreed year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Integrating the SDF would mend Syria’s deepest remaining fracture, but failing to do so risks an armed clash that could derail the country’s emergence from 14 years of war and potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
Both sides have accused the other of stalling and acting in bad faith. The SDF is reluctant to give up autonomy it won as the main US ally during the war, which left it with control of Daesh prisons and rich oil resources.
SANA, citing the defense ministry, reported earlier that the SDF had launched a sudden attack on security forces and the army in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods of Aleppo, resulting in injuries.
The SDF denied this and said the attack was carried out by factions affiliated with the Syrian government. It said those factions were using tanks and artillery against residential neighborhoods in the city.
The defense ministry denied the SDF’s statements, saying the army was responding to sources of fire from Kurdish forces. “We’re hearing the sounds of artillery and mortar shells, and there is a heavy army presence in most areas of Aleppo,” an eyewitness in Aleppo told Reuters earlier on Monday. Another eyewitness said the sound of strikes had been very strong and described the situation as “terrifying.”
Aleppo’s governor announced a temporary suspension of attendance in all public and private schools and universities on Tuesday, as well as government offices within the city center.
