DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces said on Sunday that they killed an army commander who served under ousted ruler Bashar Assad, after he opened fire on them as they tried to arrest him.
In a statement, the forces accused Firas Abdul Karim Hammoud of having taken part in anti-government insurrections that killed security personnel.
Since Assad’s fall in December 2024, Syria’s new Islamist authorities have arrested dozens of security officials from his rule, and trials began in April.
The security forces said they “neutralized Firas Abdul Karim Hammoud... following an armed clash and a raid on his hideout in the town of Safita” in Tartus province in the coastal Alawite heartland.
Hammoud had previously “opened fire on security personnel during an attempt to arrest him,” they added.
“During the recent operation, he again opened fire and initiated a firefight with the security forces... necessitating their response.”
They said Hammoud served as a commander of the special forces in the so-called “25th Division” under Assad’s rule.
They accused him of working under Assad-era general Ghiath Dalla in leading pro-Assad groups on the coast after the former president’s fall.
They added that he was involved in “armed insurrection operations” against state institutions that killed security personnel.
Dalla, a former officer in the much-feared Fourth Brigade, had announced on social media last year the formation of a “military council for the liberation of Syria.”
The announcement came shortly before deadly violence targeting the Alawite minority, to which Assad’s family belongs, erupted on the Syrian coast in March 2025.
Authorities accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking security forces.
A national commission of inquiry said at least 1,426 members of the minority were killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor put the toll at more than 1,700.
The Alawite community has been the target of several episodes of violence since Assad’s ouster.
Despite assurances from Damascus that all communities will be protected, Syria’s minorities remain wary of their future under the new Islamist authorities.
