ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Syrian intelligence has apprehended the primary suspect of the 2013 Baniyas massacre, in which more than 100 mainly Sunni residents were killed, as he was attempting to flee across the border, state media reported on Thursday.

“The General Intelligence Service has apprehended an individual named ‘Ali Kayali’—also known as ‘Mihrac Ural’—the primary suspect in the 2013 Baniyas massacre, as he was attempting to flee across the border,” Syrian state media reported.

Ural was arrested in the Lebanese town of Mansourieh after security forces raided his residence, following his return from Al Rassoul Al-Aazam Hospital in Beirut, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The massacre took place on May 2013 in the coastal town of Baniyas in Tartous province, where loyalists of the ousted former President Bashar al-Assad raided Sunni-majority areas and killed more than 100 individuals, according to SOHR data.

In September, Syrian security forces arrested five former air force officers in Tartus province accused of carrying out airstrikes on populated areas during Assad’s rule, according to a security official cited by state media.

An 11-day sweeping offensive by a group of rebels spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by now President Ahmed al-Sharaa, brought the five-decade rule of the Assad family to an end on December 8, 2024.

The Assad regime has long been accused of myriad war crimes and serious violations of international law and human rights during the country’s 14-year-long civil war, including the use of chemical weapons, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and collective punishment.

An August 2024 report by the UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that over 113,000 individuals, including over 3,000 children, remain forcibly displaced at the hands of the parties in the Syrian civil war. The Assad regime forces were deemed responsible for over 85 percent of the total number.