A prominent Syrian businessman with close ties to President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Iran-backed militant groups in the region was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria on Monday, people familiar with the situation said.
Mohammad Baraa Katerji, 48, was killed when a drone hit his car in Saboura, an area a few kilometers inside Syria near the Lebanese border, said an official with an Iran-backed group who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Neither the official nor the pro-Damascus news agencies that reported on Katerji’s killing provided further details about the murder.
Katerji and his brother Hussam were prominent members of Assad’s inner circle for years, acting as front men for illegal business and economic interests that the president’s family controls and profits from.
Iran is one of Assad’s most important supporters and numerous Tehran-backed militias are active in Syria.
The Katerji brothers are originally from Raqqa, the Syrian city that the jihadist group ISIS once claimed as its capital. They rose to prominence when Syria descended into civil war in 2011 after the Assad regime violently suppressed a popular uprising in the country.
The brothers’ rise to power is partly due to their role as middlemen during the heyday of the illegal oil trade between Damascus and ISIS. More recently, their role as intermediaries in the illegal oil trade with the Syrian Kurdish forces that control northeastern Syria is also due to their role as brokers in the illegal oil trade.
They also facilitated arms shipments from Iraq to Syria, thereby deepening their relations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Katerji brothers have built a sprawling business empire over the past decade, spanning banking, construction, logistics, transportation and illegal oil trading.
They courted the favor of Assad and his powerful wife Asma, among other things by financing pro-regime militias and other militant groups supported by Iran.
An Israeli official said Mohammad Katerji had had links in recent years with senior officials of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force, which is part of the Revolutionary Guard and is responsible for the country’s foreign operations.
The official added that Katerji had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Quds Force and other groups.
This includes transferring millions of dollars to Hezbollah since war broke out between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in October, the official said, adding that Katerji’s killing was intended to deter others from carrying out similar activities. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US, UK and EU imposed sanctions on the Katerji brothers and some of their business interests between 2018 and 2020 in response to their illegal oil trafficking and support for the Assad regime.
As the Middle East becomes increasingly open, the Israeli military has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups over the past decade.
Israel has repeatedly attacked targets in Syria, including the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, as well as weapons depots and facilities linked to Tehran and its proxies in Syria.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Although Israel has killed high-ranking members of Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militants since October, Assad’s inner circle and members of his government have so far remained off-limits.
Israel rarely admits that it conducts operations against Iran or Syria.
