Senior Al-Assad ally defects to Turkey

A pro-regime Syrian news website confirmed Thursday that Republican Guards Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, a childhood friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had defected to Turkey the first such move by a high-ranking military commander, DPA reported.

The Syria Steps website quoted a high-ranking Syrian security source saying that Tlass "has run away to Turkey", after he discovered he was being monitored by the Syrian intelligence.

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

George Sabra, the spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Council, told dpa earlier, "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 is a childhood friend of al-Assad and a member of his inner circle. He is a Sunni Muslim from the restive city of al-Rastan in the central province of Homs, a cradle of the Syrian uprising since 2011.

He heads the 105 elite Republican Guards Brigade. According to military experts in Beirut, Tlass was pushed aside after he adopted a policy of negotiation with the opposition rebels, a strategy that reportedly angered the regime.

He managed earlier this year to negotiate a withdrawal of rebels from the mountainous Bloudan, an area near the eastern Lebanese-Syrian border.

Tlass is the son of former Syrian defence minister Mustapha Tlass, who retired in 2004 after 33 years in the post. He is also the cousin of Abdel Razzak Tlass who heads the opposition rebel al Farouk Brigade of the Free Syrian Army inside Homs.

Reports indicated that the Mustpaha Tlass left Syria for Paris earlier this year, accompanied by his wealthy businessman son Firas and daughter, for health reasons.

A source in Beirut who is a close friend of Mustpha Tlass told dpa that Tlass was not supportive of the brutal crackdown carried out by al-Assad regime since 2011, but had not spoken out about it.

Earlier, activists near the Syrian-Turkish border told dpa that at least 75 Syrian soldiers, including a general and two colonels, had defected to the rebels and fled to Turkey.

Some 350 soldiers had defected since Monday, the activists said, adding that the most recent occurred on Wednesday.

The news about the defection came as Syrian government forces intensified their attacks on Homs, by heavily shelling the area of al-Rastan.

Activists reported that Thursday's death toll reached 60 across Syria.

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations monitors in Syria said that violence in the country had reached "unprecedented" levels, rendering the mission of his unarmed team difficult.

"The escalation of violence, allow me to say, to an unprecedented level, obstructed our ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue," Major General Robert Mood told reporters in the capital Damascus on Thursday.

The 300-strong mission was suspended three weeks ago due to a spike in violence.

The surge in Syria's violence came a day before France was due to host representatives from some 100 Arab and Western countries, as well as the Syrian opposition, to discuss the 16-month conflict.

The "Friends of Syria" talks due to be held in Paris aim to draw plans to end the bloodshed.

China and Russia will not attend. The two countries, major allies of al-Assad, believe that only Syrians should decide how the transition should be pursued in their country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected Western suggestions that al-Assad might receive political asylum in Moscow, calling the idea "a joke" on Thursday.

"It is pointless to discuss (the) fate of Assad before the Syrians have begun talks among themselves," Lavrov said after meeting his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle in Moscow.

In London, whistleblowing website WikiLeaks announced plans to publish more than two million emails from political figures, ministries and companies in Syria from the last six years.

"The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement.