Some flee the sinking ship. Via Times of Israel:
Manaf Tlas, one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s closest friends and most trusted military colleagues, who is also the son of the Assad regime’s former long-serving defense minister, has defected from the Assad regime and fled to Turkey, in what one analyst described Thursday as the gravest blow yet to Assad’s regime.
Manaf Tlas and Bashar Assad have been friends since childhood, and the Tlas family, who are Sunni Muslims, have played a critical role in maintaining support for the Alawite Muslim Assads within the Syrian Sunni community. Colonel Tlas was a battalion commander in Assad’s elite Republican Guard.
Unfortunately, because of how protracted the virtual civil war has become, even bigger rats are moving onto the ship:
Iraq’s top diplomat on Thursday said he had “solid information” that al-Qaida militants were crossing from Iraq to Syria to carry out attacks, warning of a violent spillover that could shake the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Baghdad had for years urged Damascus to clamp down on militant traffic as Sunni fighters headed from Syria to aid the Iraqi insurgency.
“Now their direction is the other way around,” Zebari told reporters in Baghdad.
Of course, there’s no guarantee the ship will sink. Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are bailing furiously to keep Assad in power.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“Iraq’s top diplomat on Thursday said he had “solid information” that al-Qaida militants were crossing from …”
This sounds like a line from a remake of “Red Dawn”
“Alawite Muslim”? While the real Alawite religion is essentially extinct in Syria, and the ethnic Alawites have had their belief system thoroughly “Sunni-ized” into something akin to Islam, albeit with the Assad line in the place of Muhammad, they are not Muslims and only their pursuit of a Judenfrei Middle East allowed them to hold power with Sunni consent for so many years. (Both Syrian Sunni religious authorities and Hezb’Allah declared them “honorary” Sunnis and Shiites, respectively.) One of the reasons the Assads cling so tenaciously to power is because of what is expected to befall the Alawites under any sort of orthodox Islamic regime – elimination as heretics who are not even qualified for the humiliating existence of the dhimmi.
No danger to the ship. This is only about who gets to man the bridge.
“Meet the new boss,…”
I wonder if Assad is thinking “Gee, I probably shouldn’t have helped al Qaeda in Iraq”…
Syria gave refuge to 600,000 Iraquis during the war.
Not much thanks .
The White House must be staying up nights trying to figure out how to make hay of this crisis. There must be an angle they can work. I wonder what it will be.
Maybe Hillary should go say she’s sorry.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t care who wins-they should keep shooting and killing one another until they’re all dead.
A pox on both their houses! Seemingly, the only good guys in this row is the Free Syrian Army which is religiously secular. This will likely turn out to be a war between the Alawites and the Sunni Islamists – Al Qaeda.
The title of this post led me to believe it would be about certain democrats missing the convention in NC.
if Putin’s itinerary is anything to go by russia is busy trying to bail Israel out.
There are one million Russians to evcuate if Israel falls after Syria.
Can we call him Colonel Run-away?