Syria: former interior minister surrenders to General Security

Syria’s former Interior Minister Major General Mohammad Ibrahim Al-Shaar has surrendered himself to the General Security Department in Damascus. Images of Al-Shaar in a car with security agents were circulated on social media. It was confirmed that he was not subjected to any harassment at the time.

Al-Shaar told Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath that he surrendered himself voluntarily. He insisted that the Interior Ministry was not responsible for the unofficial and security prisons. He also claimed that he personally did not commit an act punishable by law, is ready for investigations and expects an appropriate response from the new administration, especially since his “conscience is clear”.

اللواء محمد الشعار وزير الداخلية في نظام المخلوع يسلم نفسه للسلطات السورية pic.twitter.com/OKxgiJsv6C

— قتيبة ياسين (@k7ybnd99) February 4, 2025

The former minister was a member of the Crisis Management Cell that managed the security confrontation until the bombing of the National Security Office in Damascus on 18 July, 2012, which killed several senior Assad regime leaders.

According to Al-Shaar, the Crisis Management Cell was formed by the then Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to deal with the uprising in 2011. It was headed by Hassan Turkmani, and included himself; Assef Shawkat, Deputy Minister of Defence; Mohammad Saeed Bakhitan, Assistant Regional Secretary of the Baath Party; Ali Mamlouk, Head of General Intelligence; Dawoud Rajiha, Minister of Defence; and Hisham Al-Ikhtiyar, Head of the National Security Office.

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Al-Shaar was born in 1950 in the city of Al-Haffa in the Latakia countryside and joined the army and armed forces in 1971. He rose through the ranks and held several security positions, most notably the head of the Military Security Branch in Tartous, the head of the Military Security Branch in Aleppo, the head of the 227th District Branch in Damascus in 2006, and the commander of the military police.

He also served in Lebanon during the period of the Syrian military presence there, and was one of those responsible for widespread repression, including the Bab Al-Tabbaneh massacre in Tripoli in 1986, which claimed the lives of about 700 civilians, earning him the nickname “The Butcher of Tripoli”.

In April 2011, weeks after the outbreak of popular protests, Al-Shaar was appointed Interior Minister to oversee the repression and arrests of demonstrators.

He is accused of involvement in several violations, including suppressing popular protests in Syria since 2011; supervising arrests and torture inside prisons affiliated with the Interior Ministry; and coordinating with security and intelligence agencies to suppress dissidents, in addition to his role in the Sednaya prison massacre in 2008.

Al-Shaar has been on Western sanctions lists since 2011, because of his role in suppressing the Syrians. He was included in US, European, British and Canadian sanctions, which imposed a travel ban on him and froze his financial assets.

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