Russian Air Disaster in Syria, US Action Hinges on Trump’s Decision

An-26 plane. Vitaliy Nevar/TASS
An-26 plane. Vitaliy Nevar/TASS
TT
20

Russian Air Disaster in Syria, US Action Hinges on Trump’s Decision

An-26 plane. Vitaliy Nevar/TASS
An-26 plane. Vitaliy Nevar/TASS

The Russian Defense Ministry has said that 39 people aboard an Antonov An-26 transport plane were killed after it crashed while landing at the Hmeimim airfield in Syria, the worst Russian disaster in the war-torn country since Moscow began its military operations there in the autumn of 2011.

The plane crashed on Tuesday while landing at the airfield and hit the ground when it was about 500 meters short of the runway.

According to preliminary information, a technical malfunction could have been the cause of the disaster, the Defense Ministry said.

All crew members and passengers were killed.

"No fire was delivered against the plane. A commission of Russia’s Defense Ministry will examine all possible versions of the crash," the ministry added.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone on the crash, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The Russian president, who is on a working visit to the Sverdlovsk Region, got the latest information available on the disaster and ordered an investigation into what happened.

Meanwhile, expectations over “military action” against Syria as a punitive measure grew on Tuesday, after Damascus was accused of using chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta and violating UN resolutions calling for a truce across the country, The Washington Post reported.

Russia’s “Novosti” news agency also quoted a senior US administration official as saying that Secretary of Defense James Mattis was “adamantly” against acting militarily in response to the reports about Damascus’ chlorine attacks and that National Security Adviser Hebert McMaster “was for it.”

The issue was discussed last week during a White House meeting on the situation in Syria, which was chaired by President Donald Trump and attended by Chief of Staff John Kelly, McMaster and Mattis.



Syrian Intelligence Says It Foiled ISIS Attempt to Target Damascus Shrine

A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
TT
20

Syrian Intelligence Says It Foiled ISIS Attempt to Target Damascus Shrine

A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)

Intelligence officials in Syria's new de facto government thwarted a plan by the ISIS group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, state media reported Saturday.

State news agency SANA reported, citing an unnamed official in the General Intelligence Service, that members of the ISIS cell planning the attack were arrested.  

It quoted the official as saying that the intelligence service is “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums.”

Sayyida Zeinab has been the site of past attacks on Shiite pilgrims by ISIS.

In 2023, a motorcycle planted with explosives detonated in Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least six people and wounding dozens.

The announcement that the attack had been thwarted appeared to be another attempt by the country's new leaders to reassure religious minorities, including those seen as having been supporters of the former government of Bashar al-Assad.

Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, was allied with Iran and with the Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah as well as Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the former opposition group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month and is now the de facto ruling party in the country, is a group that formerly had ties with al-Qaeda.

The group later split from al-Qaeda, and HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa has preached religious coexistence since assuming power in Damascus.

Also Saturday, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati arrived in Damascus to meet with al-Sharaa.

Relations between the two countries had been strained under Assad, with Lebanon's political factions deeply divided between those supporting and opposing Assad's rule.