The media adviser of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Luna al-Shibl succumbed to her accidents following a automobile crash that happened on Tuesday.
“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 mentioned in an announcement on Friday.
“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 she had suffered a “cerebral hemorrhage” which required emergency surgical procedure after her automobile “veered off the road.”
The 48-year-old rose to prominence for quitting a prestigious journalism profession at Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera to develop into Assad’s media adviser at a time when Damascus was cracking down on peaceable protesters in 2011, triggering Syria’s ongoing civil struggle.
But her position expanded properly past communications, carving out a spot inside Assad’s interior circle as she accompanied him to high-level conferences in Syria and on his uncommon visits overseas.
She performed an vital position throughout essentially the most intense years of the civil struggle and was a part of the delegation to in the end doomed peace talks in 2014.
Britain-based struggle monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported earlier this week that she had fallen out of official favor in latest months and her brother had been arrested.
“There was growing dissatisfaction with her within the regime,” mentioned 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 mentioned.
In 2020, Washington sanctioned al-Shibl and her husband Ammar Saati, with the U.S. Treasury saying on 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.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com