Former Colonel Ahmed Habib Ali is accused of overseeing the production of sarin gas bombs.
Syrian authorities have arrested a former officer they say was a chemical weapons specialist in the regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, responsible for sarin gas warehouses and the production of chemical weapons.
The Interior Ministry named the man on Wednesday: former colonel Ahmed Habib Ali was described as a "chemical weapons expert.".
Ali was „responsible for the sarin gas storage facilities and chemical production at Unit 417, a chemical weapons production site near Damascus,” the ministry said. It added that „he was one of the officers who oversaw the production of approximately 20 sarin gas bombs, each weighing 250 kg, that were used in attacks on Syrian cities and towns in 2013 and 2017.”.
His arrest came less than a week after Syria was reinstated as a member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a watchdog that stripped Syria of its voting rights in 2021 after finding that its air force had used sarin and chlorine gas against its own people.
The deadliest attack occurred in August 2013. According to US intelligence and human rights groups, the Syrian army gassed rebel-held areas, killing more than 1,400 men, women and children.
At the height of the civil war, facing the threat of US airstrikes, Assad's government agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal. Despite this promise, Damascus was accused of four more sarin gas and chlorine attacks on opposition towns between 2014 and 2017.
Ali's detention is part of a wider wave of arrests of Assad-era officials. In April, the Syrian judiciary opened public trials of former officials, some of whom face charges of war crimes related to the 2011 uprising and its violent suppression.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, authorities have arrested dozens of people for crimes committed during the 13-year civil war.
