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Syria VP Shara under house arrest
BEIRUT: Syria denied reports on Saturday that President Bashar Assads deputy had defected and his forces pressed an offensive against rebels, bombarding parts of Aleppo in the north and hitting an insurgent-held town in the oil-producing east.Vice President Farouq Al-Shara never thought for a moment about leaving the country, said a statement from his office broadcast on state television issued in response to reports that the veteran Baath Party loyalist had tried to defect to Jordan. But a former Syrian minister who defected last March said it was well-known that Shara had tried to leave and was under house arrest. Sharas position is well known. He has been trying to leave Syria, former deputy oil minister Abdo Hussameddin told pan-Arab television Al-Arabiya. But there are a series of circumstances that prevent him from leaving, especially the fact that he has been under house arrest for some time, he said, adding that top level officials in Syria were being kept under surveillance. Shara, whose cousin an intelligence officer announced his own defection on Thursday, is a Sunni Muslim from Daraa province where the revolt first erupted against Assad, from the minority Alawite sect. The 73-year-old former foreign minister kept a low profile as the rebellion escalated but appeared in public last month at a state funeral for three of Assads top security officials killed in a bomb attack in Damascus. Posted by: Steve White 2012-08-19 |
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