Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma talk to Syrian TV after voting at a referendum on a new constitution at a polling station at a Syrian TV station building in Damascus on Saturday. (Reuters)

One of the estimated 3,000 e-mails which the Guardian said it obtained from an unnamed Syrian opposition member indicated that Assad and his family were urged to quit Syria in January by a daughter of the emir of Qatar, one of his sharpest Arab critics.

The Guardian said the e-mails, which portrayed an Assad family insulated from the uprising that threatens to pitch Syria into civil war, came from the private accounts of Assad and his wife and was confident they were genuine.

The e-mails were intercepted from June last year until early February as Assad cracked down on opponents in a revolt that the United Nations estimates has killed 8,000 people.

Some e-mails showed that Assad’s British-born wife Asma was arranging for the purchase of an Armani lamp from London’s posh Harrods store, placing orders for jewelled necklaces from Paris and chasing up on a delivery of furniture to Damascus.

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Source: Reuters, ARABNEWS