AhlulBayt News Agency: A senior Syrian Shia cleric has been arrested and his son subjected to assault and battery in the Arab country’s southwest as violence retains its hold on the nation following last year’s foreign-backed ouster of Syria’s democratically-elected government.
Sheikh Adham al-Khatib, who represents the followers of the Household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the country, was nabbed in the city of Sayyida Zainab on Wednesday, Press TV’s Syria Bureau reported.
Various other sources confirmed the development, adding that the incident had also featured physical and verbal attack against the cleric’s son, Ja’afar, and the latter’s companion.
The sources identified the location of the arrest as the vicinity of the office of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, a late revered Shia cleric, in the city, which also hosts the Holy Shrine of Zaynab bint Ali (AS), daughter of
Imam Ali (AS), the first Shia Imam, and his wife Fatimah bint Muhammad (AS), Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)’s daughter.
“Yes, these are gangs and militias that have no covenant or charter,” one source wrote in a post on X, former Twitter, in condemnation of the Wednesday assault.
Later, however, other reports indicated that Khatib had been released after a few hours in detention.
The overall situation remains volatile across Syria since the country’s violent takeover by Israeli- and Western-backed militants that took place amid intense Israeli airstrikes against the nation’s civilian and defense infrastructures.
The regime, which retains the strikes, although to an apparent lesser extent, claims it is waging the attacks to prevent spillover of the violence into the occupied Palestinian territories.
Khatib’s arrest follows a spate of murders targeting noted Syrian scientific figures.
The deadly attacks have sparked fears of an ongoing purge against the country’s scientific and elite community like the one that took place in the aftermath of the United States invasion of neighboring Iraq in 2003, which witnessed widespread deadly targeting of Iraqi elites.
..................
End/ 257
Your Comment