Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
by countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
State Department front man Mark Toner gave no details, referring news hounds to others governments after being asked about speculation that the Syrian president was weighing asylum offers from Latin America.
"We do understand that some countries, both in the region and elsewhere, have offered to host Assad and his family should he choose to leave Syria," Toner said.
"We, at this point, don't have any formal understanding or knowledge of concrete offers. We are aware that some offers have been made, as I said, informally, but we don't have any concrete offers.
The asylum speculation stems from a recent trip to Cuba by Syria's deputy foreign minister, Fayssal Mekdad, who delivered a message from Assad to Cuban President Compañero Raul Castro
...Fidel's little brother...
, according to the official Cuban Prensa Latina news agency.
The Syrian official also was reported to have traveled to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador, whose leftist governments have close relations with Havana.
Tunisia's president offered Assad asylum as recently as March, and U.S. officials told politicians a year ago that Arab leaders were privately telling Washington that had offered Assad asylum if he would step down.
But the latest rumors come amid intensifying fighting in the suburbs of Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
, and U.S. warnings to Syria not to use chemical weapons against its own people.