A former Syrian intelligence officer who was close to one of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad’s top army commanders was killed in Lebanon, a judicial official said Tuesday, with the army announcing it had arrested a suspect.<\/p>\n
It was the first confirmation since Assad’s ouster in December last year of a former Syrian government official being present in Lebanon, though many in Syria believe Assad-era figures are hiding in the neighbouring country.<\/p>\n
The judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the body of Ghassan al-Sukhni was found near the house where he was staying in the Kesrwan area, north of Beirut.<\/p>\n
Lebanon’s army announced in a statement on X that it had arrested the alleged perpetrator, who it said killed Sukhni “following a financial dispute”.<\/p>\n
The judicial official said Sukhni “sought refuge in Lebanon after the fall of the Assad regime” and was a former Syrian intelligence officer closely associated with Suhail al-Hassan.<\/p>\n
Nicknamed “The Tiger”, Hassan led Syria’s special forces under Assad and was frequently described as the former ruler’s “favourite soldier”.<\/p>\n
He was responsible for key military advances by the Assad government in 2015 during Syria’s civil war.<\/p>\n
The Assad family exercised control over Lebanese affairs for decades and was accused of assassinating numerous officials in Lebanon who expressed opposition to its rule.<\/p>\n
Lebanon and Syria have committed to turning a new page on ties since his ouster, but issues including Damascus’s demand that Beirut release Syrian nationals held in Lebanese jails remain key sticking points.<\/p>\n
str-lg\/smw<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A former Syrian intelligence officer who was close to one of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad’s top army commanders was killed in Lebanon, a judicial official said Tuesday, with the army announcing it had arrested a suspect. It was the first confirmation since Assad’s ouster in December last year of a former Syrian government official being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[95,306,330,125],"class_list":["post-22046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-conflict","tag-crime","tag-lebanon","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22049,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22046\/revisions\/22049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}