Two passengers on the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Potomac River on Wednesday night were world-class ice skaters who worked as coaches in the United States. The skaters, two champions from Russia, shared a partnership both on the ice and in marriage.

The Skating Club of Boston confirmed in a social media post on Thursday that Yevgeniya Shishkova, 52, and Vadim Naumov, 55, were on the plane that collided with a military helicopter as it approached Ronald Reagan National Airport, leading to the crash that killed everyone on board. Many passengers were athletes and coaches leaving the U.S. Figure Skating national championships in Wichita, Kan.

Ms. Shishkova, also known as Evgenia Shishkova, and Mr. Naumov competed for Russia in pair figure skating before moving to the United States in 1998. They were married in their native St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1995.

In the 1990s, Mr. Naumov and Ms. Shishkova reached the top of their careers. They won gold in pair skating at the World Skating Championship in Japan in 1994, and participated in the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics. Overall, they skated in six World Championships, winning a collection of gold, silver and bronze medals.

They did not qualify for the 1998 Olympics and ended their skating careers to become coaches. Like many professional Russian skaters, they moved to America while Russia experienced a sharp economic downturn after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

They settled in Simsbury, Conn., where they joined the International Skating Center of Connecticut. Apart from coaching, they took part in professional tournaments.

The coaching was not always easy. Speaking with the Yankee Magazine of New England in 2007, Mr. Naumov said that in the United States, children “are overexposed to competition.”

“Parents want to see results for what they’re paying for, and coaches want to show those results,” he said. “In Russia the government paid for our training. I practiced with a group, and I didn’t start to really compete until I was 15.”

On his profile page for The Skating Club of Boston, Mr. Naumov said that he loved “to create an environment where students have fun while working hard.”

Juliet Macur contributed reporting.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, anticipation was running high on Wednesday. Ahmed al-Shara, who led the overthrow of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad, was expected to address the public for the first time since his rebel coalition seized power almost two months ago.

But the speech never came. Instead, a series of critically important decisions were announced in spurts on the state news agency: The coalition headed by Mr. al-Shara declared him president for a transitional period, nullified the Constitution and dissolved the legislature and army that were formed under the ousted dictatorship.

While some Syrians celebrated the announcements, others were wary about the way the decisions were made and Mr. al-Shara’s decision not to speak directly to the Syrian people.

The declarations placed control over the formation of a new state firmly in Mr. al-Shara’s hands for the foreseeable future. His coalition did not say how long this transitional period would last and it was not immediately clear whether his appointment had broad support across a diverse range of factions outside of his coalition.

“It’s a very centralized, authoritarian, top down approach,” said Dr. Salam Said, a Syrian researcher and former lecturer at the Free University of Berlin. “Progressive Syrians and others are really worried about their role and their participation in this new state,” she added. “They feel left behind in all of these decisions.” “They say temporary president, transitional period. But how long is this period?”

In recent weeks, Mr. al-Shara has faced criticism for failing to make a single speech addressing the Syrian public since his coalition took power in early December. During that time, however, the new leadership publicized a flurry of meetings between Mr. al-Shara and visiting foreign diplomats.

The way in which the leadership announced crucial decisions on Wednesday — during a private meeting with several other rebel groups in the presidential palace — also drew criticism. Notably absent from the meeting were some Druse militias that effectively control much of southwestern Syria and the Kurdish militia that controls the northeast.

The coalition did not publish any information about which factions were present at the meeting or the process through which they appointed Mr. al-Shara, leaving uncertainty over whether there was a unified front behind these steps.

In the weeks after his rebel coalition swept into the capital, Damascus, Mr. al-Shara and his allies spoke of a sweeping vision for Syria’s new state. Leaders from across society — including activists, intellectuals and opposition figures — would be invited to help build a caretaker government. An inclusive committee would draw up a new Constitution. Elections would be held. Free speech would rein.

That rhetoric was welcomed by many in Syria, a country ruled with an iron fist by the Assad family for more than 50 years. But over time, the euphoria has begun to fizzle.

“They are now deriving their legitimacy from militarily liberating the country,” said Alise Mofrej, a member of the Syrian Negotiation Commission, an umbrella organization for Syrian opposition groups. But Mr. al-Shara needs to assure the Syrian people that he will not establish “a new tyranny,” she added.

A spokesman for the interim government’s military operations, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, also announced on Wednesday that all Syrian militias would be dissolved and integrated into the state. But it was unclear how rebel factions that were not present and have so far refused to give up their arms would respond to that mandate.

Some militias had previously refused to disband and integrate their fighters into a new national army until they had more clarity on the form the caretaker government would take.

In Damascus, some slammed the declarations on Wednesday as a missed opportunity for Mr. al-Shara to engender trust between his coalition and the Syrian public by explaining his vision for the country during the transitional period or providing more clarity on the role of his caretaker government.

“While it was expected for him to be announced as transitional president, the way it was done — and the way that some political actors were excluded — cost him some political capital,” said Ibrahim al-Assil, a Syrian adjunct professor of political science at George Washington University who returned to Damascus after the fall of the Assad government.

“I don’t think that was a game changer,” he added. “But it was a step that has people worried about what will come next.”

Reham Mourshed contributed reporting.

President Trump’s sweeping executive order to halt foreign aid threatens to freeze a U.S. program supporting security forces inside a notorious camp in the Syrian desert that holds tens of thousands of Islamic State members and their families, Syrian and U.S. officials said.

The order has also wreaked havoc on another U.S. organization in Syria that was forced to briefly stop operations inside the camp, known as Al Hol, where the large concentration of ISIS members is seen as a security threat.

Concerns over an ISIS comeback have been rising, with Syria in a state of flux as its new leaders try to solidify control over a nation still fragmented after rebels ousted its authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad.

The Trump administration has argued that the funding freeze, set to last for 90 days, was needed to ensure U.S. funds were not being wasted. But its impact highlights the risk posed to operations seen as critical to preventing a resurgence of ISIS, a jihadist group that once controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq and launched deadly attacks in Europe and the United States before it was decimated by an American-led international coalition.

American troops still maintain a presence in northeastern Syria, supporting a local U.S. ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in the coalition’s fight against ISIS. The S.D.F. not only controls northeastern Syria, but also a constellation of prisons and refugee camps in the territory holding ISIS fighters and their families, who are mostly from Syria and Iraq but also dozens of other countries.

“The Al Hol camp is full of ISIS remnants,” Jihan Hanan, the camp director and an official in the regional government, said in an interview. “Our prisons are full of ISIS fighters. They pose a huge threat to the people of this region. We were the ones who fought on the front lines against ISIS. We were America’s partners. They should continue with us to the end — or at least until we can ensure peace and security for this region.”

Western security officials have also expressed concerns that any deterioration of control over the camps and prisons could fuel an ISIS revival in the region and beyond.

After Mr. Trump’s directive last Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stop-work order for all foreign aid. That order has halted operations by the U.S. contractor, Proximity International, which manages a program to train and equip thousands of Syrians to act as a police force, and provide them with vehicles and equipment.

One of the company’s most critical roles is providing security inside Al Hol camp, which houses some 39,000 ISIS members, their families and refugees, Ms. Hanan said. Occupied mostly by Iraqis and Syrians, the camp also contains foreigners of 42 other nationalities.

“It’s got a huge effect on us,” Ms. Hanan said of the halt to Proximity operations. “They supported internal security. They supplied what was needed for the camp gates — the technical equipment they needed, security cameras — all that kind of work, they supported that.”

Maintaining security at Al Hol, as well as a smaller camp, Al Roj, is viewed as a critical part of keeping an ISIS resurgence at bay. The camps are seen as a key target for ISIS recruitment and operations.

Proximity International’s contract to support the security forces ends on Friday, according to Ms. Hanan and two of the program’s employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity. And because it has been ordered to stop work, it cannot sign a new contract with the forces. The company has filed for an exemption, the employees said, but had yet to receive a response as of Thursday.

Proximity International did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Local officials warned that not only were such freezes a security risk, they could also undermine Washington’s relationship with its local Kurdish allies before the Trump administration has determined its strategies toward Syria and ISIS.

Adding to the disarray for the sensitive programs is the Trump administration’s apparent reversal of the directive ordering halts to federal funding. The two U.S. contractors affected at Al Hol said the move did not appear to reverse their freeze but that it had added yet another layer of confusion to an already uncertain situation.

The U.S. State Department defended the foreign aid freeze this week, arguing that it would incentivize organizations to offer a thorough accounting and justification of American financing of foreign projects.

The stop-work order also briefly halted a Virginia-based nonprofit organization’s work last Saturday in the two camps, laying bare the potential for chaos.

The nonprofit, Blumont, handles aid distribution, electricity and latrines at the camps, and employs security guards for the camps’ warehouses and supply centers. It also helps manage repatriation operations: Reducing the number of inhabitants at the camps is seen as critical to diminishing the potential for exploitation by ISIS.

Ms. Hanan said when Blumont was ordered at 1 a.m. local time Saturday to stop operations — hours before she and the organization were set to help repatriate dozens of families to Iraq — the aid group immediately withdrew its security guards and halted distribution of bread and fuel.

S.D.F. forces rushed in to fill the security gap, she said, while Blumont workers scrambled to stretch their resources to cover residents’ needs.

It was not until the beginning of this week that the company received a two-week waiver to continue security and humanitarian aid at the camps while U.S. administration officials reviewed the assistance, according to a Blumont employee and a senior U.S. military official, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

But the weekend delay in bread distribution had so angered camp inhabitants, Ms. Hanan said, that she had feared it would spark violence.

“People started demanding we open the gates and let them go,” she said. “We could handle a day or two, but after that? We just can’t. What would happen in the camp; what kind of explosion could this cause among its inhabitants? Could they attack us? Force their way out of the camp? Attempted escapes? All of that could happen.”

It is unclear what will happen when the waiver expires. A Blumont representative said the humanitarian group would continue to deliver aid and provide critical services in the camps until told otherwise, and “we’ll follow additional guidance as we receive it.”

In a statement on Wednesday, the State Department said, “A temporary pause, with common-sense waivers for truly life-threatening situations, is the only way to scrutinize and prevent waste.”

U.S. financial assistance overseas generally supports humanitarian, development and security programs, and it makes up less than 1 percent of the government budget.

Ms. Hanan warned that the aid at the camps was critical for the region. “ISIS is still here,” she said. “This isn’t over.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.