Syrian authorities have arrested Brigadier General Abdel Karim Ahmad Hammadeh, a senior military officer closely tied to the ousted Assad regime and one of its principal liaisons with the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The arrest, announced Saturday, March 22, comes amid a sweeping campaign by the transitional Syrian government to dismantle remnants of the former regime’s military and intelligence infrastructure.
According to Al Arabiya, Hammadeh had long served as a confidant of Maher al-Assad—the powerful brother of deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad—and held several influential posts in the 4th Armored Division, including the head of the checkpoints administration in Deir ez-Zor.
Captain Muslim Osman al-Sheikh of Syria’s General Security Directorate confirmed to Al Arabiya/Al Hadath that Hammadeh was apprehended “after a precise tracking operation” in central Deir ez-Zor, where he had been hiding. He noted that Hammadeh previously served in several key operational roles, including in the central operations room and the reconnaissance division of the 41st Brigade, before becoming the official coordinator with the IRGC in the region.
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Hammadeh was also responsible for managing the so-called “reconciliation file” on behalf of the former regime—an effort to bring back former fighters and defectors into the fold of Assad’s collapsing military apparatus. As reported by Arabi21, he acted as a senior advisor and channel of communication between Assad’s officers and the Iranian regime’s military establishment, serving Tehran’s interests in Syria’s volatile eastern provinces.
The arrest was confirmed by multiple outlets, including i24NEWS Arabic, which quoted security sources stating that Hammadeh functioned as the “IRGC liaison officer” in Deir ez-Zor, and was a strategic link in Iran’s efforts to entrench itself militarily in eastern Syria.
His arrest marks a significant milestone in the ongoing effort by the Syrian transitional authorities to prosecute those responsible for foreign interference and war crimes during the Assad era. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, following an 11-day military offensive launched from Idlib and Aleppo, the newly formed government has prioritized the dismantling of Assad’s military and intelligence legacy.
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President Ahmad al-Sharaa, appointed to lead the transitional government on January 29, 2025, has repeatedly criticized Iran’s destabilizing role in Syria. In a speech on February 4, he described Tehran’s military presence as a “threat to the entire region,” and previously stated that the overthrow of Assad “set back the regime’s regional project by 40 years.”
The clerical regime in Iran had been Assad’s key ally throughout Syria’s protracted civil war, which began in 2011 with peaceful protests and descended into a brutal multi-sided conflict. With the help of Hezbollah, Russian air support, and IRGC ground forces, the regime clung to power through immense violence and foreign intervention.
The war left over 600,000 dead and more than six million Syrians displaced and devastated the country’s infrastructure and economy. The IRGC played a pivotal role not just militarily, but also in shaping post-war economic and political arrangements that aimed to anchor Iran’s influence in Syria.
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However, since the regime’s downfall, Syrian-Iranian relations have sharply deteriorated. On January 18, 2025, Syria’s Ministry of Finance announced a full ban on Iranian imports. A day earlier, Turkish Airlines issued a travel advisory revealing that Iranian citizens would now require official visas to enter Syria—an unprecedented measure between two former allies.
The arrest of Hammadeh coincides with a broader campaign launched by the transitional authorities to neutralize remaining Assad loyalists. Dozens of “reconciliation offices” have been set up across the country to allow former military personnel not implicated in crimes to surrender their weapons and reintegrate peacefully.
Yet for figures like Hammadeh—who were deeply embedded in Assad’s security architecture and served as bridges to foreign powers—the path forward appears to be legal accountability. With this arrest, the message from Damascus is clear: the era of foreign-dominated Syrian governance has ended, and those complicit in its maintenance will be held to account.