Syrian intelligence arrested Ali Kayali, also known as Mihrac Ural, while he attempted to cross the border. The operation was coordinated with Turkish intelligence, according to state media.
Syrian authorities have arrested Ali Kayali, also known as Mihrac Ural, the chief suspect in the 2013 massacres in the coastal city of Baniyas. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that the General Intelligence Directorate detained Kayali as he was trying to flee across the border.
The arrest was carried out in a special operation coordinated with Turkish intelligence, SANA said in an updated report. The agency did not specify where the arrest took place or which border Kayali was attempting to cross.
Kayali, a former militia leader loyal to Syria’s then-leader Bashar al-Assad, has long been accused of involvement in the mass killings of civilians in Baniyas and the nearby village of al-Bayda in western Syria during the early years of the country's uprising. According to SANA, Kayali was born Mihrac Ural in 1956 in Hatay, Turkey, and moved to Syria in 1982.
Kayali has been suspected of playing a leading role in the killings of predominantly Sunni civilians in the villages of Bayda and Ras al-Nabaa in 2013. At the time, he led an armed group loyal to then-President Bashar al-Assad.
According to figures from the Syrian Network for Human Rights cited by SANA:
Human Rights Watch described the killings in 2013 as "one of the deadliest instances of mass executions in Syria’s increasingly bloody conflict." Militias affiliated with Kayali have also been accused of carrying out massacres in the countryside of Latakia, Aleppo and Idlib, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries.
Kayali has also been implicated in the May 2013 twin bombings in Reyhanli, in Türkiye's southern Hatay province. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that Kayali is the main suspect in these bombings, which killed at least 52 people.
The arrest of Kayali comes less than two weeks after Syrian counterterrorism authorities detained Jamal Trabulsi, his former deputy in the pro-Assad Syrian Resistance militia, on Oct. 4. Syrian authorities have accused Trabulsi of taking part in military operations alongside forces loyal to Assad, including the 2013 massacres in Baniyas and al-Bayda.
Following Assad's ouster in December 2024, Syrian authorities have intensified efforts to arrest former regime officials and militia commanders accused of committing crimes against civilians during the country's civil war. The conflict began with pro-democracy protests in 2011 before escalating into a war involving armed groups, paramilitary forces and foreign powers. The Baniyas-area killings are often cited as an important episode in the shift toward a sectarian dimension in the conflict.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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