After Donald Trump’s victory in the recent U.S. presidential election on Wednesday morning, Syrians circulated an arrest warrant issued against him by the Syrian regime. Notably, arrest warrants issued by the Syrian regime remain in effect until formally overridden by the appropriate authorities or the head of the regime.
The warrant included the following details: a message to the Minister of Justice from prominent Syrian lawyers, including Salem Kareem, head of the Aleppo Bar Association, along with lawyers Mohamed Qasmo, Mohamed Fouad Darwish, and Wael Bzara. They filed a personal lawsuit requesting the intervention of Syria’s Attorney General to initiate a public prosecution against the accused, Donald John Trump, for “undermining the state’s prestige, violating its sovereignty, interfering in its internal affairs, and demanding the severest penalties.”
During his previous term, Trump had called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad an “animal” following a chemical attack on the city of Khan Shaykhun in southern Idlib. Trump also ordered a missile strike on the Shayrat Airbase using dozens of Tomahawk missiles, which resulted in the destruction of several aircraft.
This Syrian arrest warrant mirrors a similar arrest issued by Iranian-aligned authorities in Iraq. In January 2021, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council issued a warrant against Trump for ordering the U.S. military strike that killed the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was killed alongside al-Muhandis in a U.S. missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020, which was ordered by Trump. The council cited Article 406 of Iraq’s penal code, noting that investigations into other potential participants in the operation would continue.
Assad’s warrant for Trump aligns with other members of the Iranian axis. Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen issued a death sentence against Trump in 2020, publishing it in official Houthi media. This sentence was issued by the West Sana’a Court under the authority of the militia.
President-elect Donald Trump previously acknowledged his intent to eliminate Assad, expressing that he had the opportunity to do so in retaliation for the Syrian regime’s chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun over three years ago. In a Fox News interview, Trump stated that former Secretary of Defense James Mattis advised against it, criticizing Mattis as “a terrible general and poor leader.” Trump explained his original plan to assassinate Assad following the Khan Shaykhun attack in April 2017, saying, “I preferred to kill him; I was fully prepared for it.”
He continued, stating, “I certainly didn’t consider him a good person, but I had the opportunity to get rid of him if I wanted, but Mattis opposed it… he was against most of those things.”
