Close adviser of Syrian president dies after car crash: Presidency

Luna Shibl, an advisor to Syrian president Bashar Assad, died on Friday after she was involved in a car accident last Tuesday, sources confirmed to Al-Majalla magazine. (Syrian Arab News Agency)
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Updated 05 July 2024
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Close adviser of Syrian president dies after car crash: Presidency

  • Shibl was involved in incident on Yaa’four Road in Damascus

DAMASCUS: Luna Shibl, an adviser to Syrian president Bashar Assad, died on Friday three days after she was involved in a car accident, the office of the president said.

“The presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic mourns the death of the adviser Luna Al-Shibl, who passed away today after a serious car accident,” it said in a statement.

“She served in recent years as a director of the political and media office of the presidency and then as a special adviser to the presidency,” it added.

State media reported on Tuesday that Shibl was involved in a traffic accident on Yaa’four Road in Damascus, suffering a “cerebral haemorrhage” after her car “veered off the road,” after which she was taken to a clinic near the crash site and then transferred to intensive care in Al-Shami Hospital in the Syrian capital.

The 48-year-old rose to prominence for quitting a prestigious journalism career at Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera to become Assad’s media adviser.

She carved out a place within Assad’s inner circle as she accompanied him to high-level meetings in Syria and on his rare visits abroad and played an important role during the most intense years of the Syrian civil war. She was part of the delegation to ultimately doomed peace talks in 2014.

Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported earlier this week that she had fallen out of official favor in recent months and her brother had been arrested.

“There was growing dissatisfaction with her within the regime,” said Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman.

“Accusations surfaced that she leaked minutes of closed meetings between Assad and Iranian officials,” Abdulrahman added.

Syrian intelligence arrested her brother “on charges of communicating with a party hostile to Syria” after Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April, the monitor said.

In 2020, Washington sanctioned Shibl and her husband Ammar Saati, with the US Treasury saying at the time that “she has been instrumental in developing Assad’s false narrative that he maintains control of the country and that the Syrian people flourish under his leadership.”

* With AFP


Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labor body over deadly pager explosions, minister says

Updated 53 min 43 sec ago
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Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labor body over deadly pager explosions, minister says

  • Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram said he traveled to Geneva to formally file the complaint against Israel at the International Labor Organization
  • Bayram said the casualty count was even higher than first reported

GENEVA: A Lebanese government minister said Wednesday his country was filing a complaint against Israel at the UN’s labor organization over the string of deadly attacks involving exploding pagers, saying workers were among those killed and injured.
The explosions in mid-September were widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. The blasts killed at least 37 people, including two children, wounded more than 3,000 and deeply unsettled even Lebanese who have no Hezbollah affiliation.
Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram said he traveled to Geneva to formally file the complaint against Israel at the International Labor Organization, a sprawling UN agency that brings together governments, businesses and workers.
Bayram said the casualty count was even higher than first reported, saying “more than 4,000 civilians fell — between martyrs and injured and maimed — in a few minutes by this attack.”
“This method of warfare and conflicts may open the way for many who are evading international humanitarian law to adopt this method of warfare,” the minister told reporters at the UN compound in Geneva.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent, if not condemned,” he said. “We are in a situation where ordinary objects — objects used in daily life — become dangerous and lethal.”
Speaking in Arabic, Bayram insisted that ILO conventions guarantee the safety and security of workers, who “were in their workplace and had their pagers or walkies-talkies exploding all of a sudden,” according to an interpreter.
“I do not know where the outcome (of the complaint) will go, but at least we raised our voices to say and warn against this dangerous approach that strikes at human relations and leads to more conflicts,” he added.
An ILO spokeswoman said she was not immediately aware of the complaint or what redress might be possible through it.


Hezbollah chief says tens of thousands of ‘trained’ combatants ready to fight Israel

Updated 06 November 2024
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Hezbollah chief says tens of thousands of ‘trained’ combatants ready to fight Israel

  • “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight, Naim Qassem said
  • He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal

BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s chief said Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight, adding that nowhere in Israel was off-limits to attacks.
“We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight, Naim Qassem said in a speech marking 40 days since his predecessor was killed.
He also said nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits” to the group’s attacks.
He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal.
“We don’t base our expectations for a halt of the aggression on political developments... Whether (Kamala) Harris wins or (Donald) Trump wins, it means nothing to us,” he said in a pre-recorded speech before Trump’s win was announced.
“What will stop this... war is the battlefield” he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
The speech was Qassem’s second since he was named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.
He replaced the group’s decades-long chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli strike on the group’s south Beirut bastion.


Iran plays down importance of US election, voices readiness for confrontation

Updated 06 November 2024
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Iran plays down importance of US election, voices readiness for confrontation

  • Arab and Western officials tell Reuters Trump may reimpose “maximum pressure policy” through more sanctions on Iran
  • They fear Trump may also empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites and conduct assassinations

DUBAI: Iranians’ livelihoods will not be affected by the US elections, government spokesperson Fatemeh MoHajjerani was reported as saying on Wednesday after Donald Trump claimed victory in the presidential vote.
Arab and Western officials have told Reuters Trump may reimpose his “maximum pressure policy” through heightened sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and empower Israel to strike its nuclear sites and conduct assassinations.
“The US elections are not really our business. Our policies are steady and don’t change based on individuals. We made the necessary predictions before and there will not be change in people’s livelihoods,” MoHajjerani said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The Revolutionary Guards did not directly react to Trump’s claimed electoral victory but said Tehran and its allied armed groups in the region are ready for confrontation with Israel.
“The Zionists do not have the power to confront us and they must wait for our response... our depots have enough weapons for that,” the Guards’ deputy chief Ali Fadavi said on Wednesday, as Tehran is expected to respond to Israel’s Oct. 25 strikes on its territory which killed four soldiers.
He added Tehran does not rule out a potential US-Israel pre-emptive strike to prevent it from retaliating against Israel.
In his first term, Trump re-applied sanctions on Iran after he withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers that had curtailed Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic benefits.
The reinstatement of US sanctions in 2018 hit Iran’s oil exports, slashing government revenues and forcing it to take unpopular steps, such as increasing taxes and running big budget deficits, policies that have kept annual inflation close to 40 percent.
Iran’s national currency has weakened at the prospect of a Trump presidency, reaching an all-time low of 700,000 rials to the US dollar on the free market, according to Iranian currency tracking website Bonbast.com.


Iranian Revolutionary Court sentences four individuals to death over charges of spying for Israel

Updated 06 November 2024
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Iranian Revolutionary Court sentences four individuals to death over charges of spying for Israel

DUBAI: Four people were sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in northwestern Iran over charges of spying for Israel, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
Fars said three of the defendants — whose nationalities it did not give — were accused of helping Israel’s spy agency Mossad move equipment used in the 2020 assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Fakhrizadeh was viewed by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability. The Islamic Republic has long denied any such ambition.
The Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported in February 2021, citing intelligence sources, that Fakhrizadeh was killed by a one-ton gun smuggled into Iran in pieces by Mossad agents, both Israeli and Iranian nationals.
Israel declined to comment at the time of his killing and on Wednesday an Israeli government spokesman said in response to the Fars report: “We never comment on such matters. There has been no change in our position.”
Fars said the fourth defendant sentenced to death was linked to another unspecified espionage case.


Rescue workers pull 30 bodies from apartments in Lebanon after Israeli strike

A resident of a building damaged in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday night, returns to collect his family’s belongings in Barja.
Updated 28 min 27 sec ago
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Rescue workers pull 30 bodies from apartments in Lebanon after Israeli strike

  • Search efforts were ongoing Wednesday, and it was unclear how many survivors or bodies were still trapped under the rubble
  • The airstrike Tuesday night came without warning

BARJA: Lebanon’s Civil Defense service says they have pulled 30 bodies from the rubble of an apartment building that Israel struck the night before. Search efforts were ongoing Wednesday, and it was unclear how many survivors or bodies were still trapped under the rubble.
The airstrike Tuesday night came without warning. There was no statement from the Israeli military on the strike, and it was not immediately clear what the intended target was.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a surprise announcement that sparked protests across the country. Gallant’s replacement is Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a longtime Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister.
While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant said military force created the necessary conditions for at least a temporary diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reported. A report by Lebanon’s crisis response unit said 361,300 Syrians and over 177,800 Lebanese crossed into Syria between Sept. 23 and Nov. 1.