Mihrac Ural, Mastermind of Reyhanlı Massacre, Arrested in Syria After 44 Years on the Run

Syria's General Intelligence agency announced the arrest of Mihrac Ural, a senior leader of the THKP-C-Acilciler organization, as he attempted to flee across Syrian borders out of the country.

Ural is accused of planning, in coordination with the Assad regime's intelligence services, the suicide bombings that struck Reyhanlı in the Turkish city of Hatay in 2013, killing 52 people. He had remained on Turkey's red list of most dangerous wanted individuals, with a bounty of 20 million Turkish lire placed on his head.

Ural was born in 1956 in Antakya and fled Turkey to Syria in 1982 while detained on charges related to illegal organizational activity. Over the following decades, he developed close ties with Jamil al-Assad, brother of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, through his wife Malak Fadel, who had family connections, and became an influential figure within Syria. After the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, Ural went into hiding before an attempt was made to smuggle him out of the country.

Ural's name also surfaced in connection with events in Syria's coastal region, as he was linked to a militia active in the vicinity of Latakia in the areas of Kasab and al-Bassit. Evidence indicates that in early 2012 he organized an armed formation known as the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Alexandretta Sanjak - Syrian Resistance."

Ural's detention marked the culmination of a process that began in 2018 with the arrest of Youssef Nazeek, continued with the detention of Mohammad Dhaib Qarali and Timur Dukancı, then Omar al-Khatib, thereby completing the arrest of all the planners.