Ghassan Naasan al-Sakhni (left) with Major General Suheil al-Hassan (right). Click to see full-size image. (Facebook)
A commander of one of the former Syrian military’s most elite units has been assassinated in Lebanon, where he took refuge after the fall of the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad, with evidence indicating that the intelligence services of the new Islamist-led government in Damascus were behind the plot.
The dead body of Ghassan Naasan al-Sakhni was found by Lebanese security forces in the Keserwan district in the central governorate of Keserwan-Jbeil.
Al-Sakhni commanded the Termah Group, a storming unit of the 25th Special Mission Forces Division, more known as the “Tiger Forces”.
He was very close to the founder and commander of the division Major General Suheil al-Hassan, the most prominent officer during the Assad era.
At its height, the Termah Group had some 2,000 fighters. Just like al-Sakhni, most of the unit’s fighters hailed from the Muslim Sunni town of Qomhane in the countryside of the central Syrian governorate of Hama. The alliance between the town and al-Hassan, a member of the Alawite minority which Assad also belonged to, was crucial for the success of the Tiger Forces in its early years.
Click to see full-size image. (X)
Following the fall of the Assad regime last year many figures who supported the former president like al-Sakhni took refuge in Lebanon.
Lebanese authorities quickly launched an investigation to determine if the killing of al-Sakhni was purely criminal or had a political angle.
On December 23, a day after assassination was reported, the Lebanese army said that a suspect, a Syrian national, was arrested.
In a statement, it said that the suspect had lured al-Sakhni to the outskirts of the town of Kfar Yassine in Keserwan on December 22. He shot him dead over a “financial dispute” and fled the scene. He was arrested in the border town of Tal Bire in the northern Akkar governorate.
Syrian journalist Wahid Yazbk provided more details about the assassination on December 24, even identifying the suspect as a doctor named Wadih Dagher from the coastal Syrian governorate of Latakia.
According to the journalist, Dagher initially planned to abduct al-Sakhni along with a group of other perpetrators. However, the man resisted and was shot dead.
Yazbk linked the doctor to the so-called Civil Peace Committee, which was founded by Damascus following the March massacres on the coast which claimed the lives of over 1,400 Alawites. Recently, Syrian opposition activists linked the committee to the Syrian intelligence, and said that it was being used to lure back figures from the Assad era for arrest after falsely promising them amnesty.
“The gangs of the de facto authority in Damascus, and their groups from the Civil Peace group, who recently entered Lebanon under the pretext that they were expelled from Syria or hiding from the authority, are staging an obvious charade in coordination with this authority to kidnap and kill its opponents in Lebanon. Information indicates that they are behind what is happening, and they were sent for this purpose,” Yazbk said in a Telegram post.
Al-Sakhni was not the first victim of such a plot in Lebanon. At the start of the month, Syrian security forces announced that they had arrested Sami Aubry, a former commander of the Assad era National Defense Forces in the northern Syrian governorate of Aleppo. It was later revealed that the man, also a Sunni Muslim, was abducted from Lebanon.
These recent incidents led to serious concerns in Lebanon, a country with a long history of being a theater for intelligence operations by Syria and other regional powers.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist rebels who took down the Assad regime, has repeatedly called for respectful relations with Lebanon, vowing not to intervene in any way in neighboring countries.
The assassination of al-Sakhni and the abduction of Aubry before show the contrary. Syrian intelligence services are clearly operating in Lebanon once again, and what is starting as a campaign targeting figures from the Assad era, could eventually evolve into operations against Lebanese figures opposed to Damascus.
The quick reaction of Lebanese army and security forces show that Beirut is well-aware that any leniency in dealing with such interventions could embolden the Syrian intelligence.
Still, the issue will likely grow with time, and could eventually become a real crisis between the two countries, especially that some in Lebanon are already working to forge an alliance with Syria and use it as a weight against their political competitors. This is very clear in the camp opposing Hezbollah, which has been calling for handing over Assad era figures to Damascus for a while now.
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he should have gone to russia instead. the mossad has agents in every arab country and in most cases with tacit support of their governments.
the few sunni muslims who do not want to spill christian and alevite blood in syria have no place anymore there just like the few ukrainians who dont want to spill russian blood.
the west allways supports the most bloodthristy in any forgeing society.
the race to install global dystopian civilization accelerates. is you should wish to debate this pre-crime will de-bank you. if you fight back. death will arrive. to survive the masses will have to propagandize. ” i stand with israel “