Syria expels top figure among pro-Iranian remnants

Removal of Palestinian radical Talal Naji could help Damascus benefit from Israel-Iran war

Palestinian militant Talal Naji was ordered to leave Syria after briefly being detained. Reuters

Syria has expelled a radical Palestinian leader, officials said on Sunday, in the latest move against pro-Iran remnants as the US enters the war in the Middle East.

Talal Naji, who heads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), was ordered to leave Syria in the past two weeks after being briefly incarcerated, sources said. They did not say where he went, citing security concerns.

“A political decision was taken to remove him,” said a Syrian security official who requested anonymity.

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Syria, a base for an array of Palestinian factions before the downfall of the Bashar Al Assad regime last year, is looking to use the current Iran-Israel war to its advantage. Washington entered the conflict on Sunday by bombing Iranian nuclear infrastructure.

Chief among Syria's goals are accelerating establishing ties with the US and western assistance for recovery. US President Donald Trump asked Syrian leader Ahmad Al Shara in a breakthrough meeting last month to curb militants in the country and join the Abraham Accords with Israel.

Mr Al Shara, a former rebel fighter, commands Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a group once linked with Al Qaeda that has been in power since ousting the Iranian and Russian-backed Assad regime in December.

Mr Al Shara has expressed support for the Palestinian cause without the anti-Israeli rhetoric of the former regime. He said in March that Israel and Syria were engaged in indirect talks to prevent military escalation, after Israeli forces made incursions into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

A Palestinian security official confirmed to The National from Ramallah that Mr Naji, a political foe of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, had left Syria.

“They couldn’t keep such a figure in jail while Israel keeps attacking Gaza. It would just help pile accusations against them that they are traitors,“ the official said.

Syria's President Ahmed Al Shara is seeking improved relations with the West, which in turn wants him to crack down on extremism. Reuters

Mr Naji is almost 80 and lost an eye in a bomb explosion many years ago. He is married to a relative of Asma Al Assad, the former Syrian president’s wife.

The PFLP-GC was one of several groups supported by Tehran that attacked Israeli targets with rockets and drones in the last year of Mr Al Assad‘s rule. When the Syrian revolt started in 2011, the PFLP-GC acted as the regime’s enforcer in Syria’s Palestinian refugee camps, crushing protests.

Mr Naji also recruited hundreds of Palestinians into a militia that was called Jerusalem Brigades, which fought on Mr Al Assad's side during the civil war.

Support for radical Palestinian groups was a reason behind US sanctions on Syria, which started in 1979 and were toughened after the 2011 revolt. Mr Trump decided to remove most of the sanctions last month.

PFLP-GC positions were targets of Israeli attacks on Syria in 2023 and 2024. The country was a conduit for weapons and supplies to Hezbollah, as well as launch pad for attacks by Iranian proxies against the Israeli military.

The new Syrian authorities had closed all the facilities belonging to Palestinian factions. In recent weeks, they allowed the Fatah faction of Mr Abbas to reopen some of its offices, the sources said.

Smaller factions and splinter groups opposed to Mr Abbas were also based in Syria. Among them were the Palestinian Liberation Front, Fatah Al Intifada, and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. Most of their cadres fled, or were allowed to leave to Jordan, Lebanon and possibly Iran after the ouster of Mr Al Assad, according to the sources. Syria’s Ba’ath Party also established in the 1960s a Palestinian militia called Thunderbolt Troops, which took Mr Al Assad's side in the civil war.