Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan, the former head of Syria’s Air Force Intelligence and one of the most wanted figures of the Assad regime, is believed to be hiding in Lebanon after fleeing Syria last December, according to an investigation published by The Wall Street Journal.
Hassan, long considered a central architect of the regime’s repression, reportedly left Syria as the Assad government collapsed, while other senior officials dispersed across the Middle East. Several current and former Syrian and Western officials told the WSJ they suspect he is now in Lebanon, where former regime intelligence operatives are rebuilding support networks. Lebanese judicial authorities said they have “no confirmed information” about his whereabouts, while France and Syria have both submitted arrest warrants to Beirut.
The 73-year-old general, notorious for overseeing torture, disappearances and mass killings, led Air Force Intelligence from 2009 and played a key role in shaping the regime’s violent response to the 2011 Syrian uprising. “I will keep killing to keep Bashar Assad in power. I will kill half the country if I have to,” he told a detained protest leader in 2011, according to testimony cited by the WSJ.
Under his command, the agency allegedly approved the bombing of civilian neighborhoods, took part in chemical attacks, and tortured thousands in its detention centers. Documents collected by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability show he ordered security forces to fire on peaceful demonstrators, a decision that helped propel the country into a devastating civil war.
Hassan is wanted internationally. He was convicted in absentia in France on charges related to crimes against humanity, is wanted in Germany under an active arrest warrant, and is being sought by the FBI for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and torture of American citizens. Last December, U.S. prosecutors unsealed a federal indictment in Chicago charging him with conspiracy to commit war crimes.
Born in 1952 near Qusayr within the Alawite community, Hassan took part in the 1982 crackdown in Hama, a massacre he later described as “a wise decision,” according to remarks cited by the WSJ. Under Bashar al-Assad, he rose to lead Air Force Intelligence—one of the regime’s most feared security agencies—where he also oversaw sensitive security matters, including aspects of Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The Wall Street Journal reports that locating and arresting Hassan has become a key priority for the Syrian government’s transitional justice process. “His hands are covered in Syrian blood,” said Abdulbaset Abdullatif, head of the Syrian National Commission for Transitional Justice. Advocacy groups say Hassan represents the extreme brutality of the Assad-era security apparatus. “Jamil Hassan is like Eichmann to Assad’s Hitler,” said Mouaz Moustafa, director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
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