Luna al-Shibl, the special advisor to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, passed away three days after the announcement of her exposure to a car accident on one of the roads leading to the city of Damascus.

The Syrian Presidency page mourned al-Shibl today, Friday, July 5th, and offered condolences and sympathy to her family and relatives, without specifying the cause of death or her condition after the accident.

On the 2nd of this July, the political and media office in the presidency said that al-Shibl had a car accident, which resulted in her suffering a brain hemorrhage.

At that time, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) quoted the presidency’s office, saying that the accident caused the car she was in to veer off the road, which led to several collisions and resulted in serious injuries.

Hours before the presidency announced al-Shibl’s injury, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (based in London) reported that the advisor had been transferred to Al-Shami hospital in Damascus following a traffic accident and was in critical condition.

Analysts and journalists questioned the Syrian regime’s narrative that al-Shibl was involved in a car accident, with some mentioning that the incident occurred in an area under strict surveillance by the Fourth Division led by Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s brother.

Luna al-Shibl’s name emerged during the Syrian revolution after being appointed as the media advisor to the republican palace and to Bashar al-Assad.

Al-Shibl worked for Al Jazeera channel for seven years before leaving in 2010 along with four Lebanese broadcasters and returning to Syria.

She appeared as a delegate representing the regime in the Geneva II conference in January 2014, where she stirred controversy with her smile during the speech of Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem despite the seriousness of the situation.

She was married to Lebanese journalist Sami Kleib and later to the former president of the National Union of Syrian Students and former member of the People’s Assembly, Ammar Saati.

Al-Shibl is considered one of the prominent figures in the Syrian regime, and the US Treasury Department previously imposed sanctions on her, along with military and party figures affiliated with the Syrian regime.

In June 2022, Luna al-Shibl’s name returned to the forefront when local pages circulated photos of a luxurious restaurant serving Russian meals, with an interior design different from Syrian restaurants, amid talk that the ownership of the restaurant belonged to both the media advisor to the Syrian President, Luna al-Shibl, and her husband, Ammar Saati, a member of the Baath Party’s Central Command.

Syrian economist Dr. Karam Shaar explained at that time that the ownership of the restaurant belonged to Syrian businessman Najib Ibrahim, through official documents issued by the official gazette.

In a previous interview with Enab Baladi, Dr. Shaar clarified that the company’s license attached to the official gazette indicated that one of the company’s approved activities was owning and managing other companies, noting that the matching name of the mentioned company with the Russian restaurant name was not a coincidence.

The company has no other activities, and its first activity is the restaurant. Thus, based on the available reasons, the restaurant is, at least on paper, owned by Najib Ibrahim.

The obituary of Luna al-Shibl in Syria