Syria: Story of arresting Syrian doctor who had recruited members of his family to work with him for the Mossad

The Syrian Air Force Intelligence and Military Intelligence in Syria launched a massive campaign of arrests against officers and non-commissioned officers in the Syrian armed forces, in Damascus and Aleppo, on charges of cooperating with enemy parties, since the beginning of September.

According to sources in Damascus, dozens of them were interrogated on charges of cooperating and giving coordinates to Israel, after the recent strikes that targeted the airports of Aleppo and Damascus and areas in their vicinity, on August 31.

The arrests included air defense officers and others from the ranks of the military units surrounding the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, an officer and two members of a military piece in Masyaf, and members of a military force in Tartous on the Syrian coast, based on information from the Lebanese Hezbollah intelligence service, whose members are deployed in Syria.

While some of them were released after interrogation, and the intelligence services informed the released members of the need to review the branch upon their request again, while 27 members and officers are still detained since the beginning of the month.

On September 7, the Air Force and Military Intelligence services launched a raid and search campaign, and the Air Force Intelligence arrested at least 5 people in the al Malikiyah neighborhood and the residential areas surrounding Aleppo International Airport, hours after the Israeli targeting on the evening of Tuesday, the sixth of the month, which resulted in the exit of The airport is out of service with damage to its surroundings.

According to the sources, the Air Force Intelligence arrested a number of citizens, on charges of communicating with enemy parties.

The Syrian Air Force Intelligence arrested about 15 citizens, after a previous bombing of the airport on August 31, last August, and released some of them after collecting complete information about the residents.

Sources had stated that 3 people were killed and 5 others wounded, as a result of the Israeli strikes that targeted Aleppo International Airport and its surroundings on Tuesday evening.

While it confirmed that 6 Israeli missiles targeted the airport and its surroundings, which led to the severe damage to the airport runway and it’s out of service, and a warehouse in the vicinity of the airport was destroyed.

Both Aleppo and Damascus international airports were subjected to an Israeli bombardment on August 31, causing significant damage in their surroundings.

The Lebanese media had revealed that the security authorities had arrested a Syrian doctor, who they said was recruited with his family members for the Israeli intelligence service.

Maan Yousef, a Syrian doctor who hails from a town in Latakia Governorate and has been working for years in Sweden.

Youssef succeeded in recruiting his father and two brothers mainly into the espionage cell, knowing that his two brothers are a retired colonel in the Syrian army, and the other is a high-ranking brigadier general in the Syrian army, and he was serving in the topographic engineering department, before he retired early this year.

Among the collaborators, the doctor’s brother’s wife is a civil engineer in the municipality.

Story begun, as the Syrian doctor said in his confessions that he made to the Lebanese security services, that a person who claimed to be called “Christopher” and works in companies concerned with the environment and water technology, contacted him in 2018 and offered him assistance in a water purification project in Syria, Claiming that these projects are charitable and free.

He added that he informed him of his consent to have a phone call between them before they met about a month later at the Sheraton Hotel in Stockholm, where they talked about the project, and the doctor suggested the names of two people to work with him on the project: his brothers Louay and Mazen.

In other later meetings, “Christopher” brought another person who introduced him as an expert in water purification, and at the end of the meeting they asked him to bring a geographical map of the distribution of the water network in the town of Sahnaya in Western Ghouta, and he was asked to take pictures of the locations of the water tanks and the places that will be used for water refining.

Indeed, this is what happened, as the doctor traveled to meet the mayor of Sahnaya, inform him of the project, and bring the required pictures and map

As for the third meeting, it took place in Prague, Czech Republic, on the sidelines of a conference in which the doctor participated, where he got acquainted this time with the director of the alleged water purification project, who told him that he was of Greek origin and resides in Switzerland.

His name was Paul, and the meeting took place in a Lebanese restaurant so that the doctor provided the two men with maps and pictures.

Maan Yousef said that he then contacted the project manager through the WhatsApp to talk about work, personal life and politics.

He was asked to provide them with details of his family and siblings’ lives, past and present businesses, and their phone numbers.

The fourth meeting took place in 2019 in Italy, after the owner of the project asked him to travel to Milan at his own expense to meet an official in the European Union.

During which there was a talk about the sanctions on Syria and how they avoided these sanctions in the charitable project.

In this meeting, the doctor suggested to the aforementioned official that he finance the cement factory owned by his father.

He replied that European sanctions must be reduced before starting this project.

At the end of the meeting, the owner of the project granted him an amount of 550 euros, as a travel and hotel reservation allowance.

Six months later, a new meeting took place in Rome, Italy.

Maan Yousef continued, the conversations centered on his private life more than the project without any progress being made, so he asked them about the reason to inform him that the reason for this was due to the inability to bypass European sanctions, asking him to be patient.

At the end of the meeting, they gave him 600 euros for a hotel reservation and a ticket.

Communication with the project manager continued at a rate of once a week, as he began communicating with his father and two brothers, Louay and Mazen, knowing that his father, Yousef, is 85 years old and works in the iron and cement trade.

In the summer of 2019, a meeting took place in Switzerland for about an hour and a half.

The conversations were private about him and his brothers.

Maan Yousef expressed his grumbling because such talk is not worth traveling to Switzerland, so the interlocutor replied that he considers him his friend and is pleased to talk to him regardless of the projects, then he asked him for a comprehensive map of the Damascus water distribution network, justifying this by studying the feasibility of establishing several water purification projects and then granting him an amount of 1200 euros Reimbursement for travel tickets, hotel reservations, and a day off.

Yousef says that he had doubts at the time because none of the projects had been implemented.

Maan Yousef told the investigators that he considered that the entrepreneur’s requests were illogical and incoherent, but he continued to communicate, hoping that the picture would become clear to him.

The meetings between the doctor and the owner of the project have been interrupted since the beginning of 2020 due to the Corona pandemic, then the pace of communication decreased to become once or twice as a way to check on him and his brothers.

In June 2020, communication intensified, so that the owner of the project asked him to establish an office for his brother Mazen in Syria to manage the work, provided that he would bear the costs of renting and equipping the office.

Then he asked the doctor to buy a laptop and a cell phone, with a Swedish SIM card connected to it.

The latter offered him to buy his computer for 300 euros.

The detainee says that until July 2020, all the meetings focused on the water purification project, but since August 2020, the transformation began in which the doctor understood the nature of security work.

He then contacted him via the WhatsApp application and asked him to download a program dedicated to encryption and explained to him in detail the necessary steps.

He asked him to activate the WhatsApp on the Swedish line, to communicate with his brother Mazen, an officer in the Syrian army.

He asked him for a comprehensive map of the Damascus water distribution network, justifying this with a feasibility study.

Then the owner of the project asked the doctor to calculate the costs to give it, then they met in Switzerland, and a phone call took place between the doctor and the owner of the project on the one hand, and between his brother Mazen and his father on the other, and after he reassured them, he informed them that he would transfer the equipment with him to Syria to start work.

The doctor says that he then moved to smoke cigars with the owner of the project, who asked him to intensify his work in Syria in order to finance his father’s cement factory project.

The nature of the work is that he and his brother Mazen collect information that he considers important on topics that he provides us with addresses.

He stressed that this is the only way to finance the re-work in the cement plant.

The owner of the project checked the equipment and the encryption software on the laptop and sent an e-mail.

He also provided him with the password and confirmed that WhatsApp was activated on te Swedish number.

He gave him a password on a piece of paper, asking him to give it to his brother, and told him that he was forbidden to photograph it.

He asked him to try entering a document into the encryption program, and then asked him to teach these steps to his brother Mazen.

He cautioned him to tell his brother that the phone is exclusively for communicating with him through WhatsApp and e-mail, asking him to always keep the phone in the office.

He also warned him not to use the computer in any other work.

He informed him that these measures were aimed at not revealing his brother’s case because he would send him confidential documents.

Then he gave him the sum of 2,500 euros for the computer, the phone card, and a ticket to Rome and from there to Syria through Beirut International Airport.

The doctor informed the investigators that the owner of the project acted with him in a different way than before, and was addressing him in the language of the matter.

He showed a seriousness and rigor that he hadn’t shown before.

And that he discovered that what he seeks is not related to charitable work, but it turns out to him that he was communicating with an Israeli Mossad officer who was seeking security information from his brothers in Syria, and that he was taken as a mediator to complete his mission because his communication with his brothers in Syria would not raise suspicion and suspicion among the agencies.

Maan Yousef says in his testimony that upon his arrival in Syria, he met his father and two brothers, Louay and Mazen, and informed them that there were no charitable projects and that the person they were dealing with was an officer in the Israeli Mossad.

A discussion took place between them, and then they decided to continue communication and deal with it.

He taught his brother Mazen how to use the devices, as he tried to send a file after encrypting it through an application on the computer using the passcode provided by the operator.

The investigation was completed with the arrested doctor, who returned and admitted that he was the one who persuaded his brother Mazen to work with the operator, who was asking him to continue motivating his brother to complete the work in return for sums of money.

He stated that he transferred 1,500 euros to his brother.

The operator was sending gifts to his brother Mazen, who was transported by the doctor with him through Beirut airport.

The doctor told investigators that this happened four times.

As for the gifts, they were cigar boxes, a fountain pen, a box of pipes, and bottles of perfume.

The operator was sending gifts to his father, another brother and his wife.

He also sent money twice to his father, the first was 500 euros and the second was 1,200 euros.

On another occasion, he stated, he paid him 1,500 euros, then 2,300 euros, which he distributed to his two brothers and his father.

On another occasion, he gave him the sum of 6,000 euros, asking him to give 4,500 euros of it to his brother Mazen, and 1,500 euros to his brother Louay and his father.

As for the tasks assigned to his brother, an army officer, he was sent maps of municipalities belonging to the city of Damascus and its countryside, including details of roads, highways, and bridges.

He was also contacted on one occasion by a person speaking with a Jordanian accent, asking him to gather information about two people who are in Syria.