Local sources reported that the former director of Damascus International Airport was killed on Monday, amid mysterious circumstances.

Pro-regime pages and websites, according to what the opposition Nidaa Post website monitored, mourned the pilot, Muhib Ali Al-Skeif, noting that he was killed on Monday evening, without giving further details.

Al-Skeif, 58, is from "Al-Qutaylbiyah" village in "Jableh" district in Lattakia countryside.

In early 2019, Zaman Al-Wasl newspaper quoted "private" sources as saying: Al-Skeif disappeared at Damascus airport, then his deputy, Brigadier General Pilot Hamdo Al-Hajji Khalaf, with a number of brigade officers, technicians and navigators, disappeared.

The source suggested that the reason for the disappearance of these officers was to arrest them and take them to the Air Force Intelligence Department for interrogation on charges of corruption within the "Brigade 29" led by Al-Skeif, such as smuggling smoke and drugs and selling fuel.