Atef Najib was the security chief of Deraa in southern Syria when protests broke out there in 2011. He told parents of detained children to forget about their sons, go home and make new ones. A first cousin of Bashar al-Assad, he was captured in early 2025 by the new government of Ahmed al-Sharaa and is the most prominent former regime figure now in custody. He went on trial in Damascus in April 2026 for murder, torture and orchestrating massacres, denying all charges and blaming Syria's other security agencies.
The person who can smile when something goes wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.