Syria detains head of Palestinian group based in Damascus: Faction officials
Officials of a small Palestinian militant group that was close to ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said their leader was arrested Saturday by the country's new Islamist-led authorities.
The arrest of the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) came after the armed wing of another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, said last month that the new authorities had detained two of its officials on unspecified charges.
The United States, which blacklists both Palestinian the PFLP-GC and Islamic Jihad as "terrorist" organisations, has said it will not ease Assad-era sanctions on Syria until it has verified progress on priorities including acting against "terrorism".
Speaking on condition of anonymity because of sensitivity of the issue, a PFLP official told AFP that "secretary general Talal Naji was arrested" in Damascus.
A second official confirmed the arrest, while a third said: "Naji was asked... to report to one of the security branches and has not returned. Most likely he was arrested."
The first official said the faction had contacted Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and senior Hamas official Khaled Meshaal "to request their urgent intervention".
Last month, a statement from Islamic Jihad's military wing said that the group's Syria representative Khaled Khaled and organising committee member Yasser al-Zafri had been detained in Syria for days "without explanation".
It expressed hope "that our brothers in the Syrian government" would release the pair, noting their detention came as the group is "fighting the Zionist enemy" in Gaza alongside its ally Hamas.
Syria hosted Palestinian rejectionist factions for decades under the Assad family's rule when it was part of the Iran-backed "axis of resistance" against Israel and the United States.
In late March, US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Syria's new authorities should "fully renounce and suppress terrorism, exclude foreign terrorist fighters from any official roles (and) prevent Iran and its proxies from exploiting Syrian territory".
The PFLP-GC was founded in 1968 after breaking away from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
When conflict erupted in Syria in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful pro-democracy protests, the PFLP-GC stood firmly by Assad's government.
After rebels, including jihadists, overran parts of the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus in 2012, the PFLP-GC's armed wing fought alongside Syrian government forces to take it back.
The group has been accused of masterminding the bombing of Swissair Flight SR330 in February 1970, as well as several attacks against Israeli civilians.
Naji was elected secretary general in 2021 after the death of the group's founder Ahmad Jibril.
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