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A top intelligence officer who served under Syria’s deposed Assad regime and is accused of numerous killings, most notably that of prominent Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt in 1977, was arrested on Thursday.

The arrest of Ibrahim Huweija in Syria’s coastal region of Latakia came during deadly clashes with Assad loyalists and a security operation against them.

He was the former head of the notorious Air Force Intelligence, one of the most trusted and brutal security agencies of the Assad regime, which ruled Syria with an iron fist for five decades before its ouster in a lightning rebel offensive in December.

His arrest left many Lebanese in shock, with supporters of Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) celebrating the news as they prepare to mark 48 years since the assassination of their party’s founder next week.

Huweija was born in the village of Ain Shaqaq near Jableh in the Latakia governorate. Several intelligence officers are also believed to hail from the village.

He began his military career as an officer in the Assad regime’s armed forces in the 1970s, until he was promoted to Director of Air Force Intelligence in 1995 under late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.

Huweija was close to Rifaat al-Assad, Hafez’s brother who led the regime’s massacre in Hama in 1982 which killed tens of thousands of people.

According to multiple reports, Huweija was part of the security team that carried out killings and the repression of dissidents during and after the Hama massacres.

Huweija played a key role in several high-profile domestic and foreign security cases, especially in Lebanon during Syria's military dominance over its smaller neighbour which ended in 2005 after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Syria is accused of being behind a long series of political assassinations in Lebanon, including of presidents.

Huweija is accused of overseeing the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt during Lebanon’s multifaceted and violent civil war. The Syrian intel official was a captain when Jumblatt was gunned down in his car in the town of Baaqline in the Chouf region on 16 March 1977.

Walid Jumblatt, Kamal’s son who has led the PSP since, wrote "God is greatest" in Arabic following the news of Huweija’s arrest. He had long accused the Assad regime of being behind his father’s assassination.

Huweija was eventually dismissed by Bashar al-Assad in 2002, as part of what some say was the ousted president’s attempts to weaken the influence of the old guard from his father’s era.

Bashar took over as head of state after his father’s passing in 2000.