In 2011, Colonel Ahmed Muhammad al-Qaddour, a pilot stationed at the Blei military airport, decided to divert his aircraft from targeting civilians in Rastan and Talbiseh to the heart of the regime in Damascus.
Al-Qaddour, along with 23 fellow officers, coordinated a military plan to bomb the Presidential Palace and the General Staff headquarters in a coup attempt that could have ended the conflict in its first year.
The intelligence services of the former regime uncovered the plan before it could be executed, arresting the 24 officers and imprisoning them in solitary confinement in Saydnaya Military Prison. Al-Qaddour escaped death and was released in a general amnesty in July 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange deal imposed by Assad. He immediately rejoined the ranks of the rebels in the Homs countryside, rejecting the "settlements" offered by the regime at the time.
Al-Qaddour's freedom was short-lived. In November 2014, while traveling with a group of fighters from the northern Homs countryside towards Idlib, they were ambushed by elements of the regime's 66th Brigade. The clash resulted in the death of several of his comrades and the injury of his son, who managed to survive and reach Idlib to tell the story, while the father fell wounded into the hands of the Shabiha (pro-regime militia).
"If the plan for the Blei airbase had succeeded, it would have spared years of bloodshed and displacement."
Back to the Old Cell
The former regime returned pilot Ahmed al-Qaddour to Saydnaya prison. All contact with him has been lost since then, leaving behind the story of an officer who prioritized the dignity of Syrians over his military rank and who, with rare courage, attempted to change the course of history from the cockpit of a warplane.
Zaman Al Wasl
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