Syrians Arrest Two Palestinian Leaders

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Will wonders never cease? The regime in Damascus has just arrested two Palestinian leaders of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. More on the significance of these arrests can be found here: “Syrian forces detain two ‘Palestinian leaders in Damascus’ – report,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2025:

Reports in Arabic media said that two Palestinian leaders were detained in Damascus by members of the security forces of the new Syrian government.

This comes as the Syrian government continues to crack down on lawlessness and threats. It has also intercepted a shipment of Iranian-made rockets and weapons recently, and confiscated weapons from villages.

The regime is attempting to consolidate its power in a country riven with conflicts: the Sunni Muslim attacks on the Alawites in Latakia; the attempt by al-Sharaa to force the Kurdish and Druze militias to become part of the national army; the continued attempt of Iran to smuggle arms via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Hamas in Gaza; the attempt by Mahmoud Abbas to persuade al-Sharaa to crack down on the Palestinian Authority’s rivals Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the pressure from the Trump administration, that will not lift sanctions on Syria until Damascus cracks down on all of the numerous Palestinian terrorist organizations — chiefly Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — that still have operatives in Syria. And there is a general lawlessness, not political but criminal in nature, by armed gangs who have been terrorizing and stealing from ordinary Syrians, taking advantage of the breakdown in law and order that followed Bashar Assad’s fall, with the collapse both his army, and of his police force, whose members are naturally regarded with suspicion by al-Sharaa and his rebels now in power.

The Syrian government is trying to establish a state monopoly on violence. It has not only tried to incorporate the Kurdish and Druze militias, and all other armed groups, into the army, but it wants to seize all the weapons floating in the villages, including those in Alawite-populated Latakia, and to interdict Iranian weapons, including rockets, that Tehran has tried to smuggle to the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah through Syria. Iran does not share a border with Syria, but the Iranians have other ways of delivering weapons to Syria, by sea to Mediterranean ports in Latakia, and by land through Iraq.

Sky News Arabia reported that, “for the first time… two Palestinian leaders arrested in Damascus.” The reports emerged on April 21 as rumors that Damascus had detained members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

PIJ is backed by Iran and was involved in the October 7 attack. It has forces in Gaza and also in the northern West Bank, particularly in Jenin. It has been increasing its threats to Israel in recent years. PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah, as well as other key members of the group, had been based in Damascus under the Assad regime. It was not clear if they remained after Bashar al-Assad fell from power on December 8.

The reports at Sky News Arabia and also other publications such as Asharq al-Awsat, were not confirmed by the government in Damascus. The new government of Ahmed al-Sharaa is disliked by Iran and Hezbollah.

The new regime in Damascus of uber-Sunnis has broken diplomatic ties with Shi’a Iran. The men now running Syria have not forgotten, and will never forgive, either the military and financial assistance that Iran provided to Bashar Assad during the 14-year-long Syrian civil war, or the combatants from Hezbollah who fought alongside the Syrian army to suppress the rebels, including those belonging to al-Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). They may share a hatred of Israel, but that is not enough to bring about any reconciliation between the jihadists in Damascus and the mad mullahs in Tehran.

“Palestinian sources in Damascus revealed that Syrian security forces arrested two Palestinian leaders on Sunday night,” Sky News Arabia said. “The sources told the German Press Agency (DPA) that ‘Syrian security forces arrested Khaled Khaled, the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in Syria, and Abu Ali Yasser, the head of the organizing committee for the Syrian arena, in Damascus.’”

The report went on to say that the sources confirmed that Khaled’s arrest came less than 48 hours after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to Damascus and his meeting with Syrian President Sharaa. The sources revealed a large movement by Palestinian and Arab leaders inside and outside Syria to release the Palestinian leader. Syrian media reported that Khaled and Yasser were accused of “collaborating with Iran.”

Did Mahmoud Abbas visit Syria to plead for the PIJ leaders whom al-Sharaa was about to arrest? Or did he, more likely, urge al-Sharaa to round up Abbas’ Palestinian rivals in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, as part of al-Sharaa’s effort to bring all armed groups in Syria under his control?

The report said PIJ had not left Syria after December 8. “Several Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus have been subjected to repeated Israeli strikes, the most recent of which occurred on March 13, when the home of the movement’s secretary-general, Ziad al-Nakhalah, was hit by an Israeli missile strike in the Dumar neighborhood, north of Damascus.”…

By remaining in Syria, these terror groups constituted a danger to the Syrian population, for they were targets of Israeli airstrikes, and those strikes sometimes unavoidably struck Syrian citizens and Syrian buildings near the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas targets Israel was intending to hit. It was better for Syria to simply shut down those terrorist groups, forcing them out of Syria altogether.

RT in Arabic appeared to confirm the story. “The Saraya Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, issued an urgent appeal to the Syrian government to release two of its leaders who have been detained for five days,” the report said.

“The Brigades identified the two detained leaders as Commander Khaled Khaled, responsible for the Syrian arena, and Commander Yasser al-Zafari, head of the organizational committee. They noted that the arrests were carried out without providing any clear reasons.”…

The Al-Quds Brigade of Palestinian Islamic Jihad fails to understand that al-Sharaa is determined to bring all armed groups in Syria, whether ethnic-based militias (Kurds and Druze), or Palestinian terror groups (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, and many smaller groups), under his control. He doesn’t want any Palestinian group launching attacks on Israel from Syrian soil to which the IDF would then respond, potentially dragging Syria into a conflict the country’s new rulers are desperate to avoid. Furthermore, al-Sharaa is intent on persuading the Americans to lift their sanctions, and he realizes that the best way to win favor in Washington is by arresting the leaders of Palestinian terrorist groups. That is much more important to al-Sharaa than providing a safe haven for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In short, expect many more arrests, followed by the expulsion from Syria of hundreds of Palestinian terrorists either to Turkey, where Erdogan will welcome them, or to Iraq, where they might join one of the militia groups, such as Kata’ib Hizbollah, that have been lobbing rockets at American military outposts in Jordan and Syria.