Damascus, Syria – Syrian security forces have detained two senior members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in Damascus, Palestinian sources said on Monday, in a move that follows a rare visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the Syrian capital.
According to unnamed Palestinian officials cited by German news agency dpa, the arrests took place late Sunday and involved Khaled Khaled, the group’s head in Syria, and Abu Ali Yasser, who oversees its organizational committee in the country.
The detentions come less than 48 hours after Abbas met with Syria’s transitional leader Ahmed Al-Shara, amid signs of renewed Palestinian Syrian engagement following years of estrangement during Syria’s civil war.
Related: Abbas in Damascus: Protocol Visit or a Strategic Shift in the Palestinian-Syrian Relations?
Islamic Jihad, which has maintained a presence in Syria for decades, remained in the country even after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last December, unlike other factions that had supported Assad and later withdrew. The group has not been aligned militarily with Damascus but has suffered Israeli airstrikes on its Damascus offices over the years, most recently on March 13, when a strike targeted the home of its secretary-general, Ziyad Nakhalah.
Diplomatic sources told Reuters that regional and Palestinian leaders have been pressuring Syrian authorities to release the detained officials. The arrests could be linked to broader geopolitical calculations: According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the United States has demanded that Syria expel Palestinian militant groups and curtail their fundraising operations as part of any future sanctions relief negotiations.
