Syria’s Interior Ministry has announced that they made some high profile arrests near the capital city of Damascus, capturing what they described as a “Hezbollah terrorist cell.” The claimed the cell was threatening stability and national security in the area.
The statement from Ahmed al-Dalati, the security commander in the Damascus province, claimed the raids took place west of Damascus, and images they released to social media showed as many as five detainees captured.
Dalati suggested that the cell was trained in northern Lebanon before being deployed into Syria. They reported seizing rocket launchers as well as anti-tank missiles in the course of the operation.
A Syrian Interior Ministry image from 9/11/25 raid | Image from X
Hezbollah was quick to issue a statement denying involvement in the matter, saying they had no affiliation with the detainees, and maintain no presence in Syrian territory.
Hezbollah had a presence in Syria during the Assad government’s era, but since the regime change in December, Syria has been ruled by the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who are hostile to the Shi’ite Hezbollah. HTS forces have launched operations against Shi’ites in the border area where Hezbollah was once active earlier this year, and has presented most of those operation as Hezbollah-related.
It remains to be seen in this case if the raid and the detentions were actually a Hezbollah faction or simply another group of Shi’ites which were branded such for the sake of making the Interior Ministry’s raid sound more impressive and consequential.
