Military commander flees Syria

A key member of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle and high-ranking military commander has defected to Turkey, a pro-Assad Syrian news website confirmed on Thursday. It is the first desertion by a military commander of such a stature.

Republican Guards Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, son of the 33-year former Syrian defense minister Mustapha Tlass, “has run away to Turkey” Syria Steps website reported, allegedly after he discovered that he was under surveillance by the Syrian intelligence services.

"Tlass escaped after he knew that the Syrian intelligence has complete information on his outside contacts and his supervision of terrorist operations inside Syria," it said, adding that "his escape has no impact" on the Syrian regime.

Out of favor

The news should come as no surprise according to the opposition. George Sabra, the spokesman for the anti-Assad Syrian National Council, told dpa that "if this is true, it will not be surprising. I can confirm that Manaf has been living for the past month under house arrest imposed by the regime."

Tlass fell out of favor with the Assad regime due to his keenness for pursuing negotiation policies with opposing rebels. The approach angered the government, even though it did seem to bear fruit earlier this year when he negotiated a rebel withdrawal from Bloudan, a mountainous area skimming the eastern Lebanese-Syrian border.

Ties between Tlass and al-Assad go back to the pair's childhood, when they were friends.

The blow, which could be seen as a personal as well as professional blow to the increasingly isolated Bashar al-Assad, coincided with reports that military forces were stepping up their attacks on Homs, especially in the area of al-Rastan.

Syrian troops also advanced into Khan Sheikhoun on Thursday, a rebel-held town in the country's north, killing at least 11 people according to activists. Activists put the death toll at 60 across Syria on Thursday. The Syrian Observatory on Human Rights put the death toll for the day at a more conservative 27.

Foreign ministers head to Paris

On the diplomatic scene, foreign ministers headed to Paris on Thursday ahead of a Friday meeting on how to resolve the Syria crisis, although the talks look set to be boycotted by Russia and China.

The Friends of Syria meeting, due to kick off on Friday, is being attended by the United States, Germany, Britain, France, and Arab nations including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among other countries. Talks will focus on strategies for ending the violence in Syria. It follows similar talks in Tunis in February and in Istanbul in April.

But Moscow does not look set to attend the event, as rumors circulated in the Russian press that the United States was seeking to persuade Russia to host an exiled Assad.

Hosting Assad idea 'a joke'

But the idea of Russia hosting Assad, which was first raised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting in June, was dismissed as a joke by Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday.

“Our side thought this was a joke and responded with a joke - how about you, the Germans, take Mr Assad instead,” Lavrov said in Moscow during a joint press conference after a meeting with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle.

Nor does Beijing seem likely to attend the Friends of Syria meeting. The foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters that his country “at present does not consider attending the meeting.”

sej/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters)