Damascus Arrests Drug Trafficker Linked to Maher al-Assad, Others Held Over Tadamon Massacre
Mahfouz was reportedly employed by the ousted regime's Military Intelligence Branch 277 and was responsible for recruitment on behalf of Military Security.
Security forces also arrested two suspects linked to the 2013 massacre in the Tadamon district of Damascus: Kamel Sharif Abbas and Maher Hadeed.
Hadeed, a member of the National Defense Forces, is accused of committing additional war crimes against Syrian civilians. Authorities suspect a connection between Hadeed and Amjad Youssef, the primary suspect in the Tadamon massacre.
The arrests follow just over a month after Syrian security forces captured three individuals involved in the 2013 Tadamon massacre. One of the suspects confessed to killing more than 500 people in the Tadamon district at the start of the revolution against the former regime.
The massacre took place on Nasreen Street in Tadamon, near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus.
It remained undiscovered for nearly nine years until footage surfaced in April 2022, published by the Guardian. The video revealed Syrian regime forces executing 41 civilians, including seven women and several children.
In related developments, local media sources reported the arrest of Mohannad Naaman, a close associate of Maher al-Assad and senior officers in the Fourth Division.
Naaman, originally from Harasta in the Damascus countryside, is accused of overseeing one of the major captagon pill production sites in both the Damascus countryside and along Syria's coastal region, including a ship anchored off Syria's shores.
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