DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syria’s new authorities have detained an Egyptian militant who had fought with Islamist forces against toppled Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad’s rule over threats he made on social media to the Cairo government, a Syrian interior ministry source and an Arab security source told Reuters on Wednesday.
The move could help ease concern in Cairo over the rise to power of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels, who led the overthrow Assad last month, in light of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood at home.
The militant, Ahmed al-Mansour, posted a video this week in which he said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would meet the same fate as Assad.
He was arrested over that and other posts and is currently in a detention center, the sources said.
While most Egyptian government official statements have expressed support for the Syrian people, state-linked media has been critical of the change in power in Damascus and expressed fears of the resurgence of the Brotherhood encouraged by Syria’s rulers, who are led by HTS.
“(Syrian authorities) are the ones who arrested him, but the Egyptian media campaign sent the message,” the Arab source said.
“This is a signal to Cairo, which sees this issue as extremely important.”
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily,; Writing by Nafisa Eltahir,; Editing by Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan)
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