BEIRUT — In what would be the most high-profile defection from the inner circle of the Syrian leadership, Manaf Tlas, a friend of President Bashar Assad and a brigadier in his Republican Guard, was reported on Wednesday to have fled to Turkey.
Meanwhile, Syrian troops pushed into the rebel-held northern town of Khan Sheikhoun on Thursday, activists said.
Tlas, whose father Mustapha was defence minister under Assad’s father for 30 years, could not be reached for comment but several sources among the Syrian rebels told Reuters he had quit Damascus and a news website close to Assad’s security services quoted a Syrian official as saying Tlas was now in Turkey.
Tlas is a rare representative of the Sunni Muslim majority in a political elite and officer corps dominated by Assad’s fellow Alawites, and his break with his friend may reflect an erosion of support for the president among wealthy Sunnis, slow to join an uprising driven by their poorer co-religionists.
REUTERS / JORDAN TIMES