Syria’s Interior Ministry confirms the arrest of Amjad Youssef, linked to the Tadamon massacre that killed dozens of civilians in 2013. [Getty]
Syrian authorities have arrested a key suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, one of the most notorious mass killings of civilians carried out by forces of the regime of former dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Syria’s interior ministry announced on Friday that Amjad Youssef, part of a unit linked to Assad regime intelligence, had been detained during an operation conducted by Internal Security Forces in the Hama countryside in central Syria.
Interior Minister Anas Khattab confirmed the arrest in a post on X, stating that Youssef was now in custody following a “well-executed” operation.
Khattab said the arrest had been carried out with precision as part of ongoing efforts to track down those implicated in the massacre.
According to the interior ministry, “surveillance and tracking operations continued for several days prior to the operation in the Al-Ghab Plain in the Hama countryside, under close and continuous monitoring”.
The Tadamon massacre has come to symbolise the brutality of the Assad regime’s actions in the Syrian conflict.
Over 500,000 people were killed in the conflict, mostly by Assad regime bombardment of civilian areas. It began in 2011, when the Assad regime brutally suppressed peaceful protests against its authoritarian rule.
Youssef is among the most prominent figures linked to the massacre, which happened in April 2013 and saw regime forces execute dozens of unarmed civilians after capturing part of Tadamon from opposition forces.
Video footage showed the summary killing of civilians before their bodies were dumped into a pre-prepared mass grave, with subsequent investigations identifying Youssef as a perpetrator.
One video showed Youssef leading 11 blindfolded men one by one to a pit, taunting several of them before pushing them into the hole in the ground and shooting them dead.
41 civilians appeared in the video footage, while estimate suggest that the total number of victims executed in the area may be as high as 288.
It is one of the most thoroughly documented massacres committed during the Syrian war.
The release of the videos in 2022 sparked outrage globally, including within Syria, leading to rare concessions from the Assad regime, including the release of hundreds of detainees and the appointment of a new defence minister.
However, prior to his arrest, Youssef had remained at large and was reportedly working at a military base outside Damascus, according to the UK newspaper The Guardian.
