Rida al-Basha, a Damascus-based Al-Mayadeen correspondent aligned with Hezbollah, has made explosive claims about former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to al-Basha, Assad was directly involved in the killing of senior IRGC and Hezbollah figures inside Syria during 2024.
He further alleges that Assad played a role in the suspicious death of his media adviser, Luna al-Shibl, who was reported to have died in a July 2024 car accident — an incident that immediately raised widespread speculation across the region.
Al-Basha’s claims come against the backdrop of an intense year marked by a series of Israeli precision strikes targeting Iranian militias and Iran-backed commanders across Syrian territory. These strikes created significant turmoil within Iran’s network of proxies, prompting Tehran to launch internal investigations into possible breaches and betrayals within the remnants of the Ba’athist system.
The correspondent asserts that the Iranian investigation uncovered sensitive information pointing directly at Assad’s inner circle and possibly at Assad himself.