Abdel Fattah Suleiman Qudsiyeh

Current Position of Service

Vice-Director of the National Security Office

General Information

Place of Birth: Hama 1953
Specialization: Army and Armed Forces, Special Forces

Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh served in the Special Forces and in the Republican Guard, where he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier and became one of those closest to Basil al-Assad. He then moved to the Air Force Intelligence Administration, where he rose in military ranks to become the leader of the Air Force Intelligence Administration in 2005.

He was in charge of the investigation of the assassination of Lebanese Hezbollah leader ‘Imad Mughniyya in Damascus in 2008, during which he was appointed president of the Military Intelligence branch in 2009. He remained in that position until July of 2012, when he was appointed Vice President of the National Security Office of Major General Ali al-Mamlouk and Major General Rafiq Shahadah was appointed as his successor.

Major General Qudsiyeh is known for his harsh dealings with opposition members and his sectarian inclination. He has many enemies in the security [*silk], the most important of them being Major General Jamil al-Hassan, toward whom he has great enmity.

Upon the outbreak of peaceful protests in March 2011, Major General Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh was president of the Military Intelligence branch. It played an essential role in repression operations, as it was the largest of the regime’s four intelligence services. Major General Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh was one of the members of the Crisis Cell whose headquarters were targeted with explosives in July 2012.

Qudsiyeh is considered one of the most important officers responsible for the crimes and violations committed by Military Intelligence forces especially, and by the rest of the members of the security services in Syria. The most important of the accusations directed against him are as follows:

• Direct responsibility for all of the crimes and violations committed by members of the Military Intelligence branch in the period extending between March 2011 and July 2012, that is, the period during which he was president of the division, since he had an essential role in the repression operations and arbitrary detentions in Dara’a, Damascus, and the Damascus countryside. He is also considered responsible for all of the crimes and violations committed in Hama before the regime took it over entirely, and likewise the crimes and violations in Homs, its countryside, and the city of al-Nabk.
• Direct responsibility for all of the crimes and violations that were committed in the branches and divisions of the Military Intelligence branch, both central and local, during the period of his presidency. The most important of these are Palestine branch,[1] the Military Investigation branch,[2] the Regional branch,[3] and the Patrol branch,[4] and for the crimes of the officers of these branches and divisions, the most important of which are Major General Wafiq Shahadah, Brigadier Yasin Dahi, Brigadier Mufid Wardeh, and others.

As a result of his criminal record, the name of Major General Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh as appeared in a number of international reports that have document the crimes and violations in Syria, including a Human Rights Watch report published on December 15, 2011 entitled “By All Means Necessary! Individual and Command Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Syria,” and the report “Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011”, which documented arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance in Syrian detention centers, as well as the report “We’ve Never Seen Such Horror,” which documents Syrian security forces’ commission of crimes against humanity in Dara’a. Other such reports include “If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syrian Prisons,” which documents murders committed by Syrian intelligence services, and “It Breaks the Human: Torture, Disease and Death in Syria’s Prisons,” which documents the modes of systematic torture conducted by the Syrian intelligence services in the repression of the Syrian people. Likewise, Major General Abdel Fattah Qudsiyehhas been placed on the British,[5] European,[6] Canadian,[7] and American sanctions lists because of his responsibility for a large number of crimes and violations committed against civilians.

[1] Martyrs of torture in Palestine branch 235: https://www.safmcd.com/martyr/index.php?id=7

[2] Martyrs of torture in Military Investigation branch 248:

https://www.safmcd.com/martyr/index.php?id=5

[3] Martyrs of torture in the Regional branch 227:

https://www.safmcd.com/martyr/index.php?id=4

[4] Martyrs of torture in Patrol branch 216:

https://www.safmcd.com/martyr/index.php?id=3

[5] He is ranked 218 on the British sanctions list.

[6] He is ranked 9 on the European sanctions list.

[7] He is ranked 13 on the Canadian sanctions list.