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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Gunmen assassinate Syrian army general in Damascus

2012-02-11

Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Saturday in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the state-run news agency said.

SANA said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital. No one claimed responsibility for the killing.

The attack indicates that violence in Syria is reaching the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities. Such assassinations are not uncommon outside Damascus and army officers have been killed in the past, mostly in the restive provinces of Homs and Idlib.

Posted by:tipper

#4 In Godfather terms, this is the equivalent of killing (pre-betrayal) Fredo.

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-02-11 16:49

#3 The Muslim Brotherhood revolt of the late 70's and early '80's killed thousands of government figures, and came close to assassinating Assad pere. Then came the destruction of Hama, home base of the Ikhwan. More on the dead general, from the NY Times:

The doctor, trained in Romania and France, came from an Alawite family with close ties inside the Assad government that has run Syria for the past 40 years, according to one activist in Syria who was piecing together his biography.

He is believed to have been the nephew of Mohamed al-Khouli, the former head of the widely feared Air Force Intelligence Directorate, the most powerful of the multiple security agencies that cement the governments power. The elder Mr. Khouli was a security adviser to President Hafez al-Assad until the president died in 2000.

My guess is that the guy was an easy target thought to be safe from rebel attack because he wasn't involved in security matters, and therefore unguarded or lightly guarded. This is the kind of attack that enrages the regime without actually having hurt it.

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-02-11 16:47

#2 Texhooey, Ayman al-Zawahiri is the head of Al Qaeda in Pakistan...and a doctor and surgeon. Like engineers, doctors are trained to think analytically and to design solutions to problems. So when they go to the bad, they tend to be quite effective at it.

Posted by: trailing wife 2012-02-11 16:19

#1 Useless killing of an MD, despite being a general. IMO

Posted by: texhooey 2012-02-11 13:49

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