Syrian PM’s break months in planning

Syria’s prime minister began planning his break from the regime two months ago when President Bashar Assad offered him the post and an ultimatum: Take the job or die. The full scope of Riad Hijab’s carefully executed flight to the rebel side reverberated Monday through Syria’s leadership. Hijab became the highest-ranking government official to defect, emboldening the opposition and raising fresh questions about the regime’s ability to survive the civil war. “Every defection is another door closed for Assad and another one open for the rebels,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Gulf Research Centre based in Geneva. “It may not be the tipping point for the regime, but each breakaway is another crack.” Hijab and an entourage of family members were expected to head next to the Gulf state of Qatar, a key backer of the Syrian rebels, in a further sign of the regional brinksmanship and gambits over Assad’s fate. Ahmad Kassim, a senior official with the rebel Free Syrian Army, initially said Hijab defected along with three other ministers, but later said only two other ministers had left. There has been no confirmation, however, from Syria or any other source on other ministers defecting. Still, Hijab’s defection alone is a humiliating blow for Assad after a string of generals and ambassadors has peeled away. Like nearly all prominent defectors so far, Hijab is a member of Syria’s majority Sunnis — the Muslim sect which forms the bedrock of the more than 17-month uprising. His break suggests that elements of the Sunni elite — long a pillar of Assad’s rule — could be growing uneasy with the relentless bloodshed and the hardline policies of Assad’s minority Alawite community, which dominates the regime’s inner circle. The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Hijab’s departure will not immediately undercut the regime’s ability to fight rebels in places such as Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, which it has pounded with gunners and warplanes. Hijab was long a loyalist of Assad’s Baath Party, rising through the ranks to become agriculture minister last year. After elections in June, Hijab was picked as the new prime minister. About that time, though, his loyalties began to shift and a planto flee began to take shape, Hijab’s spokesperson, Mohammad Otri, told the Associated Press in Amman. “The criminal Assad pressed him to become a prime minister and left him no choice but to accept the position. He had told him: ‘You either accept the position or get killed’,” said Otari, who told the AP that Hijab and his family planned to travel on from Amman to Qatar. “The prime minister defected from the regime of killing, maiming and terrorism. He considers himself a soldier in the revolution,” the aide said. David Hartwell, a Mideast analyst at IHS Jane’s think tank in London, said the months of reported preparation to defect opens the possibility that Hijab could have been in touch with rebels before his appointment as prime minister. He said that could “point to a serious breakdown in inner-regime security”. Syria’s official SANA news agency said the Cabinet held an emergency session hours after a replacement was named for Hijab. Meanwhile, in a rebel base just near the Turkish border, fighters celebrated the news of Hijab’s defection even as their forces faced withering attacks in Aleppo. “If the people who are benefiting from the regime are defecting, then this shows that it is living its last days,” a fighter whoidentified himself as Abu Ahmad told the AP by telephone from the northeastern Syrian town of Jarablous. “Every time our youth hear that an officer or an official defected, it boosts their morale.” George Sabra, a spokesperson for the opposition Syrian National Council, said Hijab is a symbol of the state and added that he expected his desertion to usher in a chain of others. “He has finally discovered that this regime is an enemy of its own people and is destined to fall, and he chose to join the ranks of those who defected before him,” Sabra told AP. “This will trigger a chain of other defections by Syrian senior government and security officials,” he added. “The Syrian regime is drowning, and this is the clearest sign yet.” From jordantimes