Syria Monitor: Israeli Strike Kills Businessman Tied to Assad

On Monday near the Lebanon-Syria border, an Israeli drone strike targeted a car, resulting in the death of Mohammed Baraa Katerji, a well-known Syrian businessman with close ties to President Bashar Assad’s regime. Katerji, who was under U.S. sanctions, was reportedly killed instantly while traveling in his SUV along the highway connecting Lebanon and Syria. This was confirmed by an official from an Iran-backed group who wished to remain anonymous as he was not cleared to talk to the press.

The pro-Syrian government newspaper Al-Watan described the incident as a “Zionist drone strike on his car,” a term used to refer to Israel, but did not provide more details.

Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-aligned monitoring group, told The Associated Press that while he could not independently verify Katerji’s death, it seemed plausible that Katerji was targeted due to his financial support for Syrian resistance in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and his connections with Iran-backed groups in Syria.

In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Katerji for allegedly acting as Assad’s intermediary in oil trades with the Islamic State group and for aiding in the transport of weapons from Iraq to Syria.

Katerji and his brother Houssam, collectively known as the “Katerji brothers,” ventured into the oil industry shortly after the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011.

Israel has a long history of conducting airstrikes in Syria against Iran-linked targets, a key ally of Syria, although it seldom acknowledges these operations. These strikes have intensified recently amid the ongoing war in Gaza and frequent skirmishes between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border.