LONDON: Syrian security forces have arrested Ahmad Habib Ali, a former colonel under the Bashar Assad government, on charges of involvement in sarin gas attacks carried out between 2013 and 2017 amid the civil war.

The arrest is one of the first legal actions against a former senior officer from the regime's dismantled chemical weapons program since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, the Interior Ministry stated that Ali, as former head of Unit 417 at the Scientific Studies and Research Center, supervised the production and storage of chemical weapons, including sarin gas.

The former colonel was arrested in the coastal province of Latakia. Authorities accuse him of producing about 20 aerial bombs filled with sarin gas, each weighing 250 kg. The explosives were used in attacks on Syrian towns between 2013 and 2017.

Sarin was deployed by Assad's forces in August 2013 against Ghouta, a farming region near Damascus, killing at least 1,400 people, many of them children. Pro-government forces employed sarin over 50 times between 2011 and 2024.

The SSRC was founded in 1971. Its operations collapsed when the regime fell in December 2024, while Israel also conducted strikes against its facilities.

The detention signals a push for accountability over the systematic use of chemical weapons during Syria's civil war. The Ghouta attack drew global outrage and led to a UN investigation, though the Assad regime consistently denied responsibility. Following the regime's collapse, evidence gathered could be used in future war crimes trials.