Two nights ago, Syrian businessman Mohammed Bara’a Qaterji was killed in an Israeli airstrike in an area located in the western countryside of Damascus, near the Syrian-Lebanese border. This is the third death incident in that area within a few days, following the death of President Bashar al-Assad’s media advisor in a car accident in the same area, and Hezbollah leader and former bodyguard of the party’s Secretary-General, Yasser Nimer Karnbash. The targeted areas are surrounded by mountains, which are strongholds of the Fourth Division.

These killings in a specific, highly guarded area under the authority of the Fourth Division, led by Maher al-Assad, raise many suspicions and speculations about the connection between Israeli airstrikes and a powerful businessman close to the Syrian regime. This is particularly notable as most Israeli airstrikes in Syria have traditionally targeted military objectives or high-profile military figures in both the Syrian and Lebanese scenes.

According to information conveyed by Reuters from three unidentified security sources, Mohammed Bara’a Qaterji was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian-Lebanese border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “an Israeli drone targeted a car that Bara’a Qaterji was traveling in, in the Sabboura area of the Damascus countryside, resulting in his death along with another person who was with him. It is noteworthy that the Sabboura area is the headquarters of the Fourth Division and is one of the most securely fortified areas in Syria.”

Suspicious Narratives and “Unconvincing” Incidents

Despite official accounts sometimes referring to an Israeli airstrike and other times to an unconvincing car accident said to be staged, the local narrative among Syrians remains unconvinced by these explanations. For instance, following the death of Luna Al-Shibl, the primary question was whether the accident was truly fatal, especially after the photo of the car post-accident went viral.

The Syrian regime has a long history of assassinations and restructuring itself by eliminating old faces and promoting new ones. This approach started before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution and included the “suicide” of Ghazi Kanaan, the former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon and former interior minister, who allegedly shot himself, and the subsequent deaths of Generals Jameh Jameh and Rustum Ghazaleh under mysterious circumstances.

Furthermore, in 2012, the Crisis Cell bombing marked a significant point in the Syrian regime’s restructuring. The explosion at the National Security Office in Syria killed key regime figures, including Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Ba’ath Party National Security Chief Hisham Ikhtiyar, and Crisis Management Cell head Hassan Turkmani.

During the Syrian revolution, the regime’s elimination of old faces and introduction of new ones extended beyond the military to the economic realm as well. This shift was evident when the Syrian regime sidelined prominent old economic figures and promoted new faces with no prior business records in Syria. These individuals often do not own the companies they manage but serve as proxies for others within the presidential palace.

Sources from Damascus, observers, and activists on social media speculated that “Bara’a Qaterji might have been killed in a “liquidation” operation carried out by factions within the regime itself as part of purging the current Syrian economic team.

These sources point to the timing and location of Qaterji’s assassination on the Ya’four-Sabboura road, which saw three killings within the same month. These included the death of President Assad’s advisor Luna Al-Shibl, allegedly from a car accident on the same road, followed by the killing of Hezbollah leader Yasser Karnbash and his companion Hussein Wezani on July 9, and finally the assassination of Bara’a Qaterji.

The assassination of figures linked to the current economic team coincides with the purging operations conducted by the presidential palace committees. This began with the house arrest of businessman Khodr Taher, known as Abu Ali Khodr, and the ousting of Yassar Ibrahim, the right-hand man of Asma Al-Assad, who has disappeared from the economic scene amid reports of an assassination attempt on him as well.

An Economic Purge?

Maher al-Assad has been accused of orchestrating the purge and elimination of the current economic team and the arrest of several businessmen associated with this team. This comes as the businessmen and economic proxies linked to Maher al-Assad begin to reassert their presence in managing the Syrian economic scene in the coming period.

Among those who have prominently reemerged in the economic landscape is the Qaterji family, particularly Mohammed Bara’a Qaterji, who, according to regime media and its affiliated journalists and influencers, was killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday along with another person. This family suddenly appeared in Aleppo, started buying assets and companies, and entered the business world broadly, becoming one of the titans of the Syrian economy.

Today, the Qaterji family has become the most influential in Syria after Rami Makhlouf was sidelined, due to the numerous companies and assets they own and the sensitive sectors in which they operate. The Qaterji family’s name first emerged in the economic world when ISIS took control of the oil fields in eastern Syria, making this group responsible for organizing deals between the Syrian regime and ISIS to transport oil from eastern Syria to Damascus and other areas.

These previous deals led the U.S. Treasury Department to place Mohammed Bara’a Qaterji on the U.S. sanctions list in 2018. The Treasury Department stated that he acted as a mediator between the Syrian regime and ISIS in oil deals and that his oil companies transported oil shipments between the two parties and supplied the Syrian regime with the necessary fuel to operate its military machinery. His oil company, registered in Syrian records, also worked on transporting oil shipments between the two parties and supplying the regime with fuel and weapons shipments.

Bara’a Qaterji serves as the chairman of the Qaterji Holding Group and contributed to the establishment of Qaterji Engineering Mechanical Industries and Arvada Petroleum, among other companies.

Qaterji also ventured into tourism and construction through companies established and registered under the names of his son and nephews, who are partners in managing the family’s financial empire. These include Arman Hotel Management and Tourism, registered under his son Ahmad Bashir’s name, and AA Syria Towers, registered under his nephew Ahmad Mohammed Qaterji and two other partners from within the family.

Qaterji hails from the city of al-Bab in northeastern Aleppo, born in 1976. He is also a member of the Constitutional Committee and a representative of the Syrian regime’s delegation. Given that political capital in Syria requires military loyalty, the Qaterji family established a militia known as the Qaterji Group or Qaterji Militia, with Aleppo as its operational center. This militia, along with other multinational militias, played a role in the siege of Aleppo in 2016, leading to the surrender and withdrawal of Syrian opposition factions from the city.

Syria TV published leaked Iranian government documents confirming the Qaterji company’s relationship with the economic and engineering arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The documents detail previous correspondences with a large number of Iranian companies operating in Syria regarding the fifteenth meeting of the Higher Joint Committee for Economic Cooperation between Iran and Syria. They confirm the approval of a contract between the Iranian Azar Ab company, which is under U.S. sanctions, and the Homs Refinery and BS Company, part of the Qaterji Group, to handle all works, procedures, and equipment, and another contract between the aforementioned Iranian company and BS Company to help solve “other problems” without specifying them.

The Qaterji – Iran Oil Cooperation

The website reported information from special sources indicating that the Qaterji Group successfully networked its economic relations through lucrative contracts worth billions of dollars with major Iranian companies operating in Syria, and the engineering arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard known as “Khatam al-Anbiya.” This entity secured Oil Block 21, covering an area of 3,200 square kilometers in Homs, pursuant to a decision ratified by the Syrian People’s Assembly and issued by Bashar al-Assad as Law No. 1 of 2020, based on a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement signed with Iran in 2015. Through this 30-year investment in the block, the Iranians expect to recover approximately $3.4 billion of their debts to the Syrian regime.

The website mentioned that the obtained information indicates that the Qaterji family has a significant share in the economic investments in this large block. Additionally, the location of the block in the vast and insecure Syrian Badia forced the Iranians to rely on the security expertise of Qaterji forces for protection. Over three thousand security personnel were deployed, and dozens of surveillance towers were built around the site.

According to the website, the Qaterji-owned Arvada company began investing in the oil field just three months after signing the agreement, despite the agreement stipulating that full exploratory activities should take around five years before commencing production operations in Block 21 in Homs. The Iranian engineering company “Petro Tadbir” undertook engineering study services and monitored exploration, development, and production operations in Block 21.

The source reported that Qaterji played a crucial role in transporting Syrian and Iranian oil, refining and selling it in markets, and allocating part of the proceeds to Hezbollah for paying salaries and expenses. The “Syria in Persian” website stated that Qaterji was responsible for financing and supporting “resistance movements” in Syria, coordinating with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and collaborating with an Iranian advisor who was killed in Syria a few months ago. It is speculated that this Iranian advisor was Brigadier General Seyyed Reza Mousavi of the Quds Force, who was assassinated by Israel in December 2023 in the Sayyida Zainab area south of Damascus.