The Internal Security Forces affiliated with Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday the arrest of Jamal Trabulsi, who served as the deputy of Ali Kayali, known as Mirac Oral, during Bashar al-Assad’s rule. They accused him of participating in combat operations and a number of violations during the years of the Syrian uprising.
Syrian security announces arrest of Jamal Trabulsi
The security forces said Trabulsi took part alongside a militia loyal to the former regime in combat operations supporting its forces, including battles in the Hama, Idlib and Aleppo countryside. Internal Security also published, through its official channels, a photograph showing Trabulsi with Oral, and pointed to Trabulsi’s alleged involvement in the Banias and al-Bayda massacres in 2013. The announcement of Trabulsi’s arrest came about 10 months after the last observed movement by groups affiliated with Mirac Oral.
Groups of former regime supporters led by Oral arrived in early 2026 in the city of Tabqa, in Raqqa Governorate, to support and fight alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces, known as the SDF. Syrian security sources said at the time that the group had been spotted in Tabqa following clashes between the new Syrian government forces, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The sources linked those clashes to the SDF’s failure to implement the 10 March 2025 agreement. Local media had previously reported in July 2017 that Trabulsi was injured when an explosive device detonated in his car in Aleppo. At the time, the party responsible for the assassination attempt was not identified.
Mirac Oral’s career and armed activities
Mirac Oral was born in Antakya, in south-western Turkey, in 1956, and described himself as a Syrian Arab. He obtained Syrian citizenship during the 1980s under Hafez al-Assad and later became known as Ali Kayali. Oral began his armed activities against the Turkish government in the 1970s and joined a communist left-wing organisation known as Acilciler, meaning “the Hasty Ones”, which was linked to acts of violence.
He also joined the militia known as the Iskenderun Sanjak Liberation Front, declaring that it was working to return the sanjak to Syria. Oral was arrested in 1978 over acts described as terrorist, including the bombing of the US consulate in Adana and a bank robbery.
He moved between 12 Turkish prisons before managing to escape in 1980 after bribing his prison guard, following the coup led by General Kenan Evren. He then sought refuge in Syria and joined the Syrian army. When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Oral re-emerged as the leader of an armed Shabiha organisation called the Syrian Resistance – Popular Front for the Liberation of the Iskenderun Sanjak.
Accusations of war crimes against civilians
The organisation was based in the countryside of Latakia and took part in battles as an auxiliary force to the army of the former regime. Human rights organisations and international and local unions accuse Oral and his group of committing war crimes and sectarian crimes targeting hundreds of civilians. These accusations led to his being known by the nickname “the Butcher of Banias”.
One of the most prominent incidents attributed to him was the Houla massacre in the Homs countryside in May 2012, which resulted in the deaths of 111 civilians, most of them women and children.
Oral is also accused of involvement in the massacre in the al-Bayda neighbourhood of Banias on 2 May 2013, during which hundreds of unarmed civilians were executed by slaughtering, burning and shooting, according to the accusations directed at him and his group.
