Military Confidante of Syria’s Assad Is Reported to Have Defected

Military Confidante of Syria’s Assad Is Reported to Have Defected

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Manaf Tlass, a general in Syria’s elite Republican Guards and a member of the Damascus aristocracy who grew up around President Bashar al-Assad, was reported to have defected on Thursday.
If confirmed, it would be the first such desertion from within the gilded circle around the president since the uprising against him began in March 2011, and the kind of embarrassing departure long anticipated to indicate that the regime’s cohesion was cracking.