After 13 years of persecution... Türkiye arrests a Syrian accused of the Reyhanli bombing

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On Thursday, Turkish intelligence announced the arrest of Syrian Omar Al-Khatib, whom the authorities accuse of participating in planning and organizing the Reyhanli attack in Hatay province in 2013, which then killed 53 people and injured dozens.

Anadolu Agency quoted security sources as saying that the Turkish Intelligence Service, known as MIT, arrested Al-Khatib while he was trying to leave Turkey by sea towards Europe, before he was returned to Turkey again.

According to the government channel TRT, Al-Khatib was one of the participants in planning the famous attack, and according to Turkish security information, he coordinated between the perpetrators of the operation and military intelligence elements of the regime of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Cumhuriyet newspaper also reported that Al-Khatib met in 2013 with Youssef Nazik and Kifah Mulham, during which the details of the attack were discussed. She added that Al-Khatib and Nazik entered Turkey via Hatay in February 2013, and identified the locations of the attack before obtaining approval to carry it out.

TRT Haber reported that in May 2013, Al-Khatib went to the Military Intelligence Branch in Latakia, accompanied by Temer Dokanci, where, according to the Turkish account, they received equipment used in preparing the explosive device. The sources added that the car bomb was later transported to Reyhanli and detonated using a remote control device.

Turkish intelligence said, according to what Anadolu Agency reported, that it had continued to track Al-Khatib’s movements inside Syria since the attack, before carrying out the latest operation after monitoring his plan to flee to Europe.

Al-Khatib's arrest comes after a series of operations related to the attack file. TRT Haber reported that the Turkish authorities arrested Yusuf Nazik in 2018, and Cengiz Sertal in 2024, while in 2025 they announced the arrest of Mehmet Deeb Kurali and Temer Dokanji, whom they accuse of participating in the planning or implementation.

The Reyhanli attack occurred on May 11, 2013, when two car bombs exploded in the Reyhanli district of Hatay, southern Türkiye, killing 53 people.

Reyhanli is located near the Syrian border, and during the first years of the Syrian war it was a major point of movement between the two countries, which made Hatay, known in Arabic as “Antakya,” an area of ​​increasing security importance with the escalation of the war and the influx of Syrian refugees into Türkiye.