Syrian President Bashar al-Assad consulted Iran on how to handle the uprising against his regime and privately dismissed promised reforms as "rubbish," the Guardian newspaper in London reported Wednesday, dpa reported.
The newspaper reported in its online edition that the revelations were contained in more than 3,000 documents that activists claimed were downloaded from private accounts belonging to al-Assad and his British-born wife, Asma.
The documents also allegedly showed that the Syrian leader was briefed in detail about the presence of Western journalists in the Baba Amr district of the city of Homs, where several journalists were recently killed.
The messages, which have been obtained by the Guardian, are said to have been intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June and early February.
The documents appeared to show that the president's wife spent thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while the president traded entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes.
The Guardian said it made extensive efforts to authenticate the emails by checking their contents against established facts and contacting 10 individuals whose correspondence appears in the cache.
The checks suggested the messages were genuine, but it had not been possible to verify every one, said the paper.
The emails appeared to show that al-Assad received advice from Iran or its proxies on several occasions during the crisis, said the Guardian.
Ahead of a speech in December, his media consultant prepared a long list of themes, reporting that the advice was based on "consultations with a good number of people in addition to the media and political adviser for the Iranian ambassador."
The memo advised the president to use "powerful and violent" language and to show appreciation for support from "friendly states."
It also advised that the regime should "leak more information related to our military capability" to convince the public that it could withstand a military challenge.
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