Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma. Michel Spingler/AP BEIRUT – A shadowy rebel group operating in Damascus has claimed the assassination of one of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad’s top bodyguards.

Liwa al-Adiyat announced Wednesday that it killed Colonel Hussam Abboud Shalish, who they called "a criminal responsible for the protection of Asma al-Assad," and two of his own bodyguards “in the heart of the capital.”

The group—which has claimed a series of assassinations in Damascus—said it conducted the operation alongside the “Secret Tasks Brigade” of the Damascus Operations Room, a small faction affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.

Liwa al-Adiyat did not go details on the assassination its statement, as it has for the previous killings it claimed to have conducted in and around the Syrian capital.

The rebel faction started targeting regime security officers—most of them Alawite—in the beginning of the year, announcing on January 29 that it killed Firdous Ismail, a Lieutenant in the military security apparatus.

The following day, Liwa al-Adiyat claimed the assassination of Naseem Taref Nayyas, who the group identified as an officer in the “special forces.”

On February 9, the rebels claimed the killing of Lieutenant Ahmad Jamaa, saying they stabbed him in the neck as he was walking through the city in the night with a bottle of wine while accompanied by a prostitute.

Liwa al-Adiyat said it struck again four days later, with its assassins shooting to death Captain Ali Allouch—an Air Force pilot—while he was in his car in a parking lot.

On February 19, Liwa al-Adiyat claimed its members stabbed Lieutenant Hussein Dalaos in his own home in the capital. The group also posted a gruesome video on its Facebook page showing the slain officer’s body covered in his own blood.

“We will remain a sword that dismembers the joints of the regime and shakes its [presence] in the heart of the capital,” the rebel group warned in a mid-February statement.

Amin Nasr translated Arabic-language source material.