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LONDON: Syrian authorities this week arrested a former military official accused of executing detainees at Saydnaya prison during the regime of Bashar Assad, the Sana news agency reported.

Akram Selum Abdullah, who was a major general during the Assad era, was captured by personnel from the counterterrorism branch in the Damascus countryside, the Ministry of Interior said.

Abdullah was commander of the military police at the Ministry of Defense from 2014 to 2015, a force accused of committing serious violations against detainees in Sednaya prison, a facility near Damascus that was run by the ministry.

The ministry accused Abdullah of being “directly responsible for carrying out the executions of detainees inside Saydnaya military prison … during his tenure as commander of the military police,” the report said.

Amnesty International has described the prison as a “human slaughterhouse,” where an estimated 30,000 people were detained since 2011. Of those, only about 6,000 have been released, with rest still missing.

BEIRUT: Israel launched a series of strikes on mountainous areas in eastern Lebanon on Thursday, with the Israeli military saying it struck Hezbollah targets.
“Israeli warplanes launched a series of violent strikes on the eastern mountain range” in the Bekaa region near the border with Syria, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
It also said two Israel strikes targeted the Hermel range in the country’s northeast.
The Israeli military meanwhile said it had targeted Hezbollah sites in east and north Lebanon, including a “a military camp and a site for the production of precision missiles” in the Bekaa.
The military said in a statement that it “struck several terrorist targets” in the Bekaa, including “a camp used for training Hezbollah militants.”
It added that it “struck military infrastructure at a site for the production of precision missiles.”
It also targeted “a Hezbollah military site in the Sharbin area in northern Lebanon.”
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that brought to an end more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war.
As part of that deal, Israeli forces were to withdraw from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah was to dismantle its forces in the region.
Under US pressure and fearing an escalation of Israeli strikes, the Lebanese government has moved to begin disarming Hezbollah, a plan which the militant movement and its allies oppose.