Syrian security forces on Monday arrested three officers from the former Assad regime suspected of involvement in the notorious Tadamon massacre of April 2013.
The massacre happened in the southern Damascus suburb of Tadamon and was uncovered by Syrian researchers in 2022. An estimated 288 people were summarily executed in cold blood by members of the regime’s National Defence Forces (NDF) militia.
Some estimates suggest that over 500 people were killed in the area in 2013 and in subsequent massacres.
Sources told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that a security operation by Syria’s new authorities had targeted members of the former Assad regime in south Damascus, particularly former NDF leaders, after widespread public anger regarding inaction over the massacre.
Earlier this month, protests broke out in Tadamon after Fadi Saqr, an NDF leader widely suspected of carrying out the massacre, visited the area accompanied by military commanders from the new authorities.
The three officers arrested on Monday were named by the sources who spoke to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed as Mundhir Al-Jaza’iri, Somar Mohammed Al-Mahmoud, and Imad Mohammed Al-Mahmoud, but there was no further confirmation.
In a statement, Major Abdul Rahman Al-Dabbagh, the head of General Security in Damascus said on Monday, “following a monitoring and tracking operation, security forces managed to capture one of the leaders of the criminals responsible for the Tadamon massacre which happened 12 years ago.
“Preliminary interrogations of the suspect revealed the identity of many others involved in the massacre, and two more of them were arrested,” Al-Dabbagh added.
He also said that the three suspects confessed to their involvement in the massacre and that efforts to find mass graves in the area were underway.
“The criminals will not get away and they will be handed over to the judiciary to receive justice,” Al-Dabbagh said.
On 7 February the Syrian interior ministry’s General Security Administration also arrested Ghadeer Salem, the leader of the NDF militia’s Tadamon branch.
