A Syrian military court has sentenced two men to death over sectarian violence along the country's coast in March 2025, state news agency Sana reported on Thursday.
Three other defendants received prison terms and two were acquitted at the Military Criminal Court in Aleppo.
Al Waddah Ismail and Maher Ali were convicted of seeking to incite civil war and sectarian fighting, and leading armed gangs with the intent of attacking public forces. Both were sentenced to death.
Maher Othman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for complicity in the two offences, while Mohammed Bakour received a 20-year sentence for intentional murder and Ammar Abdul Aal was sentenced to three years for torture. The court acquitted Abdul Raouf Bakrjan and Mohammed Zarzouri.
Public hearings began at the Palace of Justice in Aleppo on November 18, 2025. The latest verdicts follow rulings on September 17 in cases involving four other defendants accused of violations during the violence, in which pro-government fighters killed hundreds of members of the Alawite minority.
At that hearing, one was sentenced to death, another to life imprisonment and a third to 20 years in prison, while the fourth was acquitted.
The violence followed attacks on army and security facilities on March 6, 2025. A national investigative committee reported on July 22 last year that remnants of the deposed regime of Bashar Al Assad had carried out widespread attacks that killed 238 military and security personnel.
The committee also documented violations against civilians in the days that followed the attacks. It concluded that the abuses were not organised or systematic, but were committed by individuals and small groups for various motives.
Separately, Syria’s General Intelligence Service has arrested Ali Kayali, also known as Mihrac Ural, a key suspect in the 2013 Baniyas massacre, as he attempted to flee across the border, Sana reported.
Mr Kayali formed an armed militia that fought alongside forces of the deposed Assad regime during the Syrian civil war. The militia was implicated in mass killings in several parts of the country, including Al Bayda and Ras Al Nabaa in Baniyas.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, 264 civilians, including 36 children and 28 women, were killed in Al Bayda, while 195 civilians, including 56 children and 43 women, were killed in the Ras Al Nabaa.
Reports and testimonies described summary executions using firearms and bladed weapons, as well as the burning of homes and bodies. Militias affiliated with Kayali were also accused of carrying out massacres in the countryside of Latakia, Aleppo and Idlib, leaving hundreds dead or wounded.
He is also the main suspect for the twin bombings in Reyhanli in Turkey’s southern Hatay province in 2013, killing 52 people, according to Anadolu Agency.
Earlier this month, Turkish intelligence arrested Omar Al Khatib, one of the alleged planners of the Reyhanli bombing, as he attempted to flee by sea to Europe. He had co-ordinated between the attackers and members of the deposed regime’s intelligence services, according to the report.
On October 4, Syrian security forces arrested Jamal Tarabulsi, Kayali’s deputy.
The Interior Ministry has said it is continuing to pursue those accused of violations against civilians during the Assad regime as part of efforts to advance transitional justice and hold accountable those responsible.
