BEIRUT — They were close friends and shared a singular lineage: Both were blood royalty of the Syrian leadership caste, birthright beneficiaries of their fathers’ stranglehold on the nation.
BEIRUT — They were close friends and shared a singular lineage: Both were blood royalty of the Syrian leadership caste, birthright beneficiaries of their fathers’ stranglehold on the nation.
But the conflict tearing Syria apart also opened a deep rift between President Bashar Assad and Gen. Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in the country’s ultra-loyal Republican Guard. On Friday, France’s foreign minister confirmed that Tlas had defected.
It was unclear whether Tlas had actually defected and joined the opposition, or had just seized an opportunity to follow his father and brother out of strife-ridden Syria.
The defection of a prominent member of Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority is a symbolic blow against the intricate cross-sect scaffolding that has helped prop up Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
That alliance was evident in the shared backgrounds of Assad and Tlas.
Assad became president after the death in 2000 of his father, Hafez Assad, the former Air Force pilot whose rise to power in 1970 initiated the family’s dynastic rule.
Tlas, whose charm and easy-going demeanor belied his martial pedigree, followed in the military footsteps of his father, Mustafa Tlas, long-time defense minister and fixer for Assad the elder.