“President Bashar al-Assad’s former defense minister has fled Syria, opposition figures said on Wednesday, noting that General Ali Habib was the most senior of Assad’s Alawite sect to defect. Habib had been under house arrest since resigning in protest at Assad’s crackdown on demonstrators in 2011 but had managed to reach the Turkish border late on Tuesday with Western help, Kamal al-Labwani of the Syrian National Coalition told Reuters. Putin again questioned Western evidence. And he accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry outright of ‘lying’ when, in urging Congress to approve strikes on Syria, Kerry played down the role of al Qaeda in the rebel forces.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE97K0EL20130904
