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Syria says Mihraç Ural was caught at the border; Lebanese media report abduction
Accounts of how Mihraç Ural, wanted by Türkiye over the 2013 Reyhanlı bombings, was captured are in conflict. Syrian intelligence says he was caught trying to cross the border, while Lebanese media say he was abducted from his home in Mansourieh near Beirut.
Syria’s General Intelligence Service has announced the arrest of Mihraç Ural, known in Syria as “Ali Kayali,” who is on Türkiye’s red-category wanted list over the 2013 Reyhanlı bombings. Syria’s official news agency SANA said he was caught as he tried to flee across the border, in an operation coordinated with Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).
According to Turkish security sources, Ural was caught on the night of October 14 inside Syria while trying to cross the border, after the two countries’ intelligence services shared information on his movements.
Lebanon’s MTV channel, however, gave a different account. It said unidentified people abducted Ural from his home in Mansourieh, in the Matn district northeast of Beirut, tied up his wife and son during the raid and then took him to Syria. MTV reported that the Information Branch of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces had opened an investigation.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), citing its own sources, said Ural was seized in a raid on his Mansourieh home after returning from Al-Rassoul Al-Aazam Hospital in Beirut, and that the raiders spoke Arabic with Lebanese accents but have not been identified. There has been no official Lebanese confirmation of this account, and Turkish authorities have not commented on where he was detained.
Born in Hatay in 1956, Ural fled to Syria in 1982. He was among the defendants in the case over the twin car bombings in the border town of Reyhanlı on May 11, 2013, which killed 53 people.
Ural is also accused of leading a pro-Assad militia behind the 2013 massacres in Bayda and Ras al-Nabaa in the Baniyas region. According to figures from the Syrian Network for Human Rights cited by SANA, at least 264 civilians, including 36 children and 28 women, were killed in Bayda, and 195 people, including 56 children, in Ras al-Nabaa.
Türkiye’s ambassador in Damascus, Nuh Yılmaz, responded to the news with “Alhamdulillah!” Syrian authorities had earlier this month arrested Jamal Tarabulsi, described as Ural’s deputy.
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