The shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, considered to be the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad's granddaughter, in southern Damascus. (Credit: Dylan Collins/AFP)
The Syrian Interior Ministry released a video on social media showing the alleged confessions of a member of an ISIS cell that was planning to carry out several operations in Syria, one of which aimed to assassinate Syria's transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa with the help of three Lebanese members.
“A security cell met to carry out high-profile operations in the heart of Syria, operations of extreme sensitivity in time and place, seeking to destabilize security and stability and sow chaos in the country," read the video published on Facebook on Tuesday.
Maaloula and Sayyida Zainab shrine
The video shows the ISIS member narrating how the cell planned several operations while claiming that some were foiled by the official Syrian security services. It included confessions that members had planned to send a car bomb to the Christian village of Maaloula to target a church on New Year's Eve, but this operation failed due to tight security. They then went on to plan three suicide attacks at the Shiite sanctuary of Sayyida Zainab, in Damascus' suburbs.
According to the video, one of the suspects communicated with three Lebanese members who had been equipped with explosive devices to carry out a bombing inside the shrine. They then confessed that the purpose of blowing up Sayyida Zainab would be to incite unrest, influence international opinion and stir up strife.
Disguised journalist
The plan was for "two members of the cell to carry out the bombing at the shrine, and the third to disguise himself as a journalist in case President Sharaa came and people gathered, then carry out the bombing.”
However, accurate intelligence information and pre-emptive operations thwarted their “malicious plans,” according to the ministry.
A swift rebel offensive in December, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ended decades of Assad rule in December. Sharaa, the then-leader of HTS, became Syria's transitional President in late January.
Last Thursday, Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration for a five-year transition period, criticized by some for giving him too much power and not enough protection for minorities.
A few days earlier, massacres killed at least 1,500 people in western Syria, most of them members of the Alawite minority to which former president Assad belongs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In January, Syrian intelligence services announced that they foiled a plot by the Islamic State group aiming to detonate a bomb in the Sayyida Zeinab sanctuary.