It is not possible for us to host him in Russia—we have too many of them already,” joked Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, with his counterparts from Western and Middle Eastern countries during a pause from their talks on June 30, 2012, at the Palais des Nations, the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.1
They were talking about where Bashar might go after stepping down and handing his powers to a transitional government. They mused whether it would be just Bashar and his wife and children, or the entire Assad family and their henchmen, too. Was it fifty, or more like 200 people in the regime?2
“I know Europe is difficult, but I am sure we can find a country in South America or Africa to take him,” said a European foreign minister as the top diplomats stood with their coffee cups in the hallway outside the conference room.3 Through the large panoramic windows, Lake Geneva glistened beneath a clear sky as the Mont Blanc summit loomed in the distance.
It was a world away from the mayhem of Syria. Civilian deaths since the start of the uprising in March 2011 were approaching 13,000. The number of refugees in neighboring countries neared 120,000, triple what it had been in March 2012 when some countries spoke about the need to establish safe havens for civilians inside Syria.
Foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States—had flown to Geneva to discuss a solution. They were joined by their counterparts from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey, each with their own stake in Syria. Representatives of the European Union and Arab League also attended.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, two key regional players who were on opposite sides of the escalating war in Syria, were notably absent from the talks.
There were hours of deliberations and discussions throughout the day. The neatly dressed and famously wily Lavrov kept stepping out of the room to take calls from his boss at the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.4 The equally experienced Laurent Fabius, who just became foreign minister in the new government of French president François Hollande, sensed that the Russians were starting to envision the possibility of Bashar being swept aside soon. So far, the Russians were uncompromising in their defense of the Syrian regime and had even delivered attack helicopters to Bashar days before the Geneva meeting.5 Still, Fabius believed that Russia had come to the meeting with the sole objective of extracting maximum concessions and protecting Russian interests in Syria in the proposed settlement they were trying to forge that day. He felt Lavrov’s hardball tactics during the talks, as well as the Kremlin’s telephonic interjections, all served that purpose.
The Russians were already reassured by the United States and its Western allies before the meeting that nothing would happen to Russia’s naval base in Tartous on Syria’s west coast if Bashar were to leave.6
Later that day, the foreign ministers gathered in an austere auditorium to hear the UN Syria envoy, Kofi Annan, read a statement outlining their agreement. The event was broadcast live by Arab and Syrian channels; many anxious Syrians tuned in, so did Bashar and Manaf in Damascus.7
A concerned but calm-looking Annan said that members of the Syria Action Group—the ad hoc grouping of the countries gathered on that day—had agreed on a road map for ending the conflict.8 It called on both the regime and the rebels to abide by an immediate ceasefire and urged Bashar to release detainees, especially those arrested for taking part in peaceful protests; to permit international journalists to work in the country; and to give humanitarian agencies access to opposition-held areas. Both the Assad regime and the opposition would then form a transitional or interim government with full executive powers, which technically meant taking away Bashar’s formal authority as president. This interim body would then draft a new constitution and hold new elections.9
“The transitional governing body could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and should be formed on the basis of mutual consent,” stressed Annan.10
But it was these two words, mutual and consent, which summed up the plan’s fatal flaw. There was no explicit mention of the post of president or of Bashar in the statement, or any reference to him leaving power. His executive powers were simply expected to be transferred to a new transitional body made up of members of his current government and the opposition. It was those two words that Lavrov insisted on inserting in the final communiqué after taking one last call from the Kremlin during the off-camera talks.11
Annan envisioned Bashar’s international backer Russia, and to a lesser extent China, convincing him to embrace the plan. The Americans and their allies who supported the opposition were expected to bring them to the negotiating table.
As Annan spoke, Lavrov was busy taking notes. He sat in the front row one seat over from Hillary Clinton, then the US secretary of state. Britain’s then foreign minister William Hague sat between them.12
“The Action Group has pledged action and they are sending a message of determination and hope, but today’s words must not become tomorrow’s disappointments,” said a somber Annan, foreshadowing the sharp disagreements among world and regional powers. “The hard work starts now, we must work together to implement what has been agreed, we cannot do this alone.”13
No sooner had Annan concluded his remarks than the rifts were out in the open.
Lavrov held a press conference in the same building and went out of his way to stress that there was nothing in the plan about Bashar leaving power. “There is no attempt to impose any kind of a transition process,” he told reporters. “There are no prior conditions… and no attempt to exclude” anyone.14
Down the hall from where Lavrov spoke Clinton also met with reporters, but she had a completely different take on the agreement. “What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power. The plan calls for the Assad regime to give way to a new transitional governing body that will have full governance powers. Now, in deciding to accept the minor textual changes, we and our partners made absolutely clear to Russia and China that it is now incumbent upon them to show Assad the writing on the wall… He needs to hear loudly and clearly that his days are numbered.”15
Clinton said that she was traveling to Paris the following week for a meeting with the Syrian opposition and their European and Arab backers. The Paris meeting was timed to coincide with Manaf’s bombshell defection. What stronger indication that Bashar’s end was near than a member of his own inner circle jumping ship, the thinking went.
Fabius told reporters in Geneva that the pillars of Bashar’s regime were going to be tried for war crimes. It was intended as an ultimatum to Bashar: Leave now or face trial.16
The next day, Sunday, July 1, Manaf was in his office at the base.17 It was early in the evening and he was planning to sleep there. He had already told his aide Ali that he was going to have dinner with the Makhloufs on Tuesday. Ali, a member of Bashar’s Alawite community, seemed happy that his boss was finally making peace with the powerful Makhloufs and ultimately with the ma’alem el-kbeer, or the big boss—Bashar.
“Great! It’s all good by the will of Allah,” said Ali.
Over the prior ten days, Manaf had quietly and slowly removed, then burned, all important documents from his office. There was hardly anything left. He’d take one last look tonight.
He did not want to leave anything behind that could be used against him or those who had been in contact with him over the years.
On one wall in the office were photographs of him with the Assads. There was one from the early 1990s of a boyish and handsome Manaf with Bashar, both in military uniform. There was a similar one with Bassel, the one who was supposed to have been president.
A framed photo on his desk showed him with Hafez months before “the eternal leader” died in June 2000. It was taken during a visit by Hafez to his friend, the elder Tlass, while Mustafa convalesced at the hospital after heart surgery. Hafez had a big smile but already looked very frail. Manaf, dressed casually in a short-sleeve shirt and slacks, looked happy, too, with his right arm wrapped around Hafez.
Manaf woke up at about 7:00 a.m. the next day, Monday, July 2, tense but determined. He washed his face and got dressed. He pulled out a copy of the Quran from the bookshelf. Religion had never been a big part of his life, but occasionally he did pray and fast during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. He read a few verses to put himself at ease.
Shortly before midday he left the base. He decided to borrow a black armored sedan that belonged to one of his guards rather than take his own SUV. It was seen as perfectly normal for someone in his position, a commander in the Republican Guard, to want to break the routine and use different cars for security reasons. In addition, taking a different car at the last minute protected him from any tracking devices that may have been put in his SUV.
He went home to Mezzeh. He quickly changed into a pair of jeans, casual shirt, and sneakers. He had prepared three plastic bags to take with him. One contained two pistols, an Italian-made Beretta and an Austrian-made Glock, both 9-millimeter in caliber and capable of firing twelve shots.18 Another larger bag had two slim, lightweight bulletproof vests. In the third bag were about a dozen spinach pies, made by his favorite bakery shop in Damascus. In his pocket was a cheap Nokia phone in which he had put the SIM card of his own private number. There was just enough power in it to last until he met up with Abu Alaa, the smuggler.
Manaf grabbed the bags, closed the door, and walked over to the car parked in his driveway. He turned the engine on, backed out, and drove to Mezzeh Highway in the direction of Barzeh, arriving fifteen minutes before his rendezvous with Abu Alaa. He parked the car in an alleyway near a bakery and walked down toward the main road. He sat on a park bench next to the Ibn al-Nafees Hospital. He waited. Abu Alaa did not show up at 1:00 p.m. as they had agreed. Then all of a sudden two men in a black car drove by and stared at him. They were for sure mukhabarat, he thought. He could tell. His heart sank.
Minutes later Abu Alaa pulled up. He was in a Nissan sedan with a damaged fender.
“I am sorry, get in—quickly!” said Abu Alaa as Manaf jumped into the seat next to him.
“What happened?” said Manaf.
“I had an accident on my way. I paid the guy 5,000 lira on the spot,” said Abu Alaa nervously.
“I am glad you’re okay,” said Manaf. “Let’s just go up to my car, I want to grab something.”
They went up to the alleyway where Manaf had left his car. He quickly got the three bags and hopped back into Abu Alaa’s car.
Abu Alaa then drove down toward Abbaseen Square, which protesters had tried to occupy early on only to be shot and killed each time by the regime.
Abu Alaa parked behind a yellow Buick on a side street off the square.
“Okay, get out—we have to change cars,” said Abu Alaa.
Manaf grabbed his bags and jumped into the back seat of the Buick. Abu Alaa got in front next to the driver.
“Abu Mohammad, this is Abu Nizar,” said Abu Alaa, introducing them to each other.
“I am honored,” said the driver with a smile.
“Me too. God bless you,” said Manaf, who was still assuming the pseudonym Abu Nizar.
It was past 2:00 p.m. as the car moved northeast toward the highway to Homs city, about 100 miles away. They joined the buses, minivans, and cars leaving Damascus. They drove past the October War Panorama Museum, a white, castle-like structure built with the help of North Korea to commemorate Hafez al-Assad’s “victory” in the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, which in reality had ended in defeat for Egypt, Syria, and other Arab states.19 It was the epitome of the lies on which the Assad regime was founded with the help of the Tlasses and others. A massive Stalinist mural inside the museum depicted Hafez being feted by the people, with Mustafa Tlass dressed in military uniform by his side. Outside, Hafez stared down from a large mural.
As Damascus disappeared behind them, Manaf reflected on the past and what had brought him to this dramatic moment of having to run away just to save his life. He consoled himself with the thought that his exit was necessary but temporary. All the signs were that Bashar’s regime was on the brink of collapse. Manaf would come back. He believed that he had no blood on his hands. He reckoned his refusal to take part in the killing of Bashar’s opponents would give him the moral authority and right to be part of whatever new system emerged from the ashes.20
They sped down the highway past the towns of Harasta and Douma, where Manaf had worked hard at the start of the uprising to negotiate a compromise between protesters and Bashar, only to see these efforts undermined by regime hard-liners.
One month earlier, on June 3, 2012, Adnan Wehbeh, the Douma-based physician and peaceful protest leader that Manaf had met with many times, was shot dead inside his clinic.21
These towns were battle zones now. The driver stepped hard on the gas pedal.
The road rose up and soon they were skirting past the ancient Christian town of Maaloula, nestled in the Qalamoun Mountains, one of the few places on earth where people still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.
“You look familiar,” said the driver all of a sudden, addressing Manaf.
“Maybe you are confusing me with someone else,” responded Manaf.
“Okay, drop it,” Abu Alaa snapped at the driver.
It was silent again in the car.
About thirty minutes later they approached the town of Deir Attiyeh. On a hill overlooking the highway stood an oversize statue of Hafez with his right arm raised up as if he were saluting all those passing by.
“If you are whom I think you are, then your friend is finished—God bless you!” exclaimed the driver, Abu Mohammad.
A few miles from Homs, the car pulled into the parking lot of a bakery and sweets shop beside the highway. Manaf and Abu Alaa hurriedly bid the taxi driver goodbye and jumped into a pickup truck that was waiting for them. In it were armed men—probably smugglers turned rebel fighters, Manaf reckoned. They drove off the highway and got on rugged back roads that snaked through farmland to reach the town of Al-Qusair, south of Homs and close to the Lebanese border, which had long had a reputation, even before the uprising, for being a hub of smuggling between Lebanon and Syria. It was a crucial link in the opposition’s supply line from Lebanon to Homs and beyond.
In Qusair, Manaf stayed for a few hours in the home of a local rebel leader and smuggling boss—a short, wiry man called Mustafa. They waited for the all-clear to head to the border. Smugglers like Mustafa had long-standing arrangements with border patrol officers in Lebanon and Syria who allowed them to move people and goods back and forth in return for money or other forms of compensation.
Later Manaf was taken closer to the border. Mustafa led him and Abu Alaa to a house under construction with a swimming pool, really just a hole in the ground filled with water. The pool was not tiled yet. There were fighters smoking and lounging by the pool, including a man who lost an arm. Manaf just greeted them with the customary salam alaykoum but otherwise kept to himself and said little. There was a doctor there, visibly nervous, who like Manaf was being smuggled out.22 Anyone who provided medical services to opposition communities topped the regime’s most-wanted list.
At about 8:00 p.m. the signal came for them to go to the border, which was barely discernible. There’s no fence along the porous border, which runs through farmland, canals, and villages. In some places, the Syrian border guard is no more than a lone young conscript with a rifle sitting on a plastic lawn chair next to the canal.
Manaf and the others ran for a few yards across the border into Lebanon. There they got on motorbikes. They soon arrived at a Lebanese army checkpoint where a sedan with tinted windows was waiting for Manaf. He hugged Abu Alaa and Mustafa and gave them his two pistols and bulletproof vests as gifts. Manaf’s trajectory from the border to a safe house in Beirut had been arranged by General Wissam al-Hassan, a powerful Lebanese security chief who had his own score to settle with Bashar over the murder of his former patron, Rafic Hariri.23
By 11:00 p.m. that night the Syrian regime had discovered Manaf’s escape, and Hezbollah operatives were looking for him in and around Beirut.24 The French secret service managed, however, to get Manaf out by sea to nearby Cyprus and then onward to France.25 Thala and his son Mustafa flew out from Beirut airport and were reunited with him in Paris, where the other children and the family patriarch, Mustafa Tlass, had arrived, too.
For days afterward, Manaf sat with French intelligence officers for long debriefings.
There was no immediate public reaction from Bashar, but Manaf’s home was raided and several of his aides, including his driver, were arrested.26
Meanwhile France, the United States, and their allies were betting that the defection of Manaf and others in Bashar’s circle, coupled with rebel offensives in both the capital, Damascus, and the largest city and economic hub, Aleppo in the north, could exert sufficient pressure on the regime and trigger one of two scenarios: Bashar agreeing to leave power in exchange for immunity from trial, or elements of his regime staging a coup.
Manaf’s exit was only one part of a bigger secret plan the French and their allies had been working on that summer.
Four days after Manaf’s escape, foreign ministers from more than 100 nations, nearly half the countries on the planet (as French officials boasted) gathered in Paris on July 6, 2012, for a conference of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People.
“Bashar al-Assad has to leave; a transitional government must be formed. This is in everyone’s interest,” said French president Hollande, addressing officials gathered at a convention center on the Seine’s left bank, a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower.27
The Syrian opposition wanted immediate action by those professing friendship to the Syrian people, not more words and threats, to end the slaughter. “We are facing a regime that’s out of the ordinary, it’s more like a gang,” pleaded veteran opposition leader Riad Seif, who had fled Syria after he was attacked by regime thugs earlier in 2012.28
In her speech at the conference, Hillary Clinton said that there was “a steady, inexorable march toward ending the regime” and called on China and Russia, both absent from the meeting, to support a Security Council resolution to implement the Geneva communiqué, or what became known as the Annan plan.29
Later that day Fabius, the French foreign minister, held a press conference to officially announce Manaf’s defection, calling it a “hard blow” for Bashar.30 “This regime must fall and liberty must reappear in that beautiful country,” he said.
Away from the conference and the glare of TV cameras, the French quietly worked with their US and Middle Eastern allies to bring the whole plan to fruition. This was the plan that was going to spell the demise of the house of the Assads, a clan whose inner workings Fabius knew very well from his time as prime minister in the 1980s and which he often likened to an international terrorist organization.31 Thirty years ago, a 37-year-old Fabius had been bitterly opposed to French reengagement with Hafez al-Assad; for him it was yielding to the terrorism that he and other officials accused the Syrian regime of committing against France, both on its soil and abroad, most notably in Lebanon. For Fabius and others who shared his thinking it was coddling the barbaric state.32
Now France was assisting in the end of the Assads’ reign of terror, as Fabius saw it.
A central element of the plan, which was supposed to play out right after Manaf’s bombshell defection, involved top Syrian army and security generals, especially from Bashar’s Alawite sect, breaking with the Assad family and siding with the rebels.
As Fabius later explained, “the certitude we acquired fairly quickly was that… if we did not want a collapse of the [Syrian] regime, perhaps as happened in Iraq with dramatic consequences after the US intervention, then we had to find a solution that blended the moderate resistance with elements of the regime who were not heavily compromised, but still elements of the regime, including the military.”33
Fabius believed that Manaf’s defection would shake the regime and that Manaf would be someone very palatable to the Russians, given their long history and friendship with his father, Mustafa Tlass. Still, he and other French officials were not convinced, at least privately, that Manaf was the leader to replace Bashar. They saw him as “a component” of what they called a future “collective leadership.”34 In this leadership council, which would rule the country until elections were organized, there were other figures representing regime constituencies, most notably Bashar’s Alawite sect.
One of the names circulated early on among all the powers actively working to push Bashar aside was that of his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat.35 Although Assef’s star had dimmed three years before the 2011 uprising, the sixty-two-year-old general remained the consummate regime insider and one of the few figures viewed by Bashar and his brother and cousins as a real threat to their grip on power. Like regime founder Hafez al-Assad, Assef was a self-made man from a humble background who had clawed his way to the top with cutthroat determination and ambition. His family hailed from the coastal province of Tartous, part of the regime’s stronghold in western Syria. The Assads and Makhloufs were from adjacent Latakia.
Before he was demoted by Bashar in 2008, Assef had handled the most delicate and top-secret files for the regime in his capacity as mukhabarat chief. He was involved in the oil deal Bashar had with Saddam before the 2003 US invasion, as well as the supply of arms to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, infiltration of radical Sunni Islamists and their recruitment for regime missions, and contacts with Western intelligence agencies under the guise of counterterrorism cooperation. Assef was a black box of Assad family secrets.36
Over the years, the charismatic and ruthless Assef had built a loyal following in his Alawite community and in the ranks of the military and mukhabarat, something that kept him under the watchful eyes of Bashar and Maher. Even after he was blamed for major security breaches in 2007 and 2008 and was demoted to deputy defense minister, he retained his military rank and, of course, his place in the family as Bushra’s husband.
He was back in the spotlight at the start of the uprising in 2011 as Bashar and his kinsmen mobilized to crush the protests and the challenge to their family’s rule. Assef was part of the special Crisis Cell that included army and mukhabarat chiefs as well as key government ministers. It quickly became evident to Assef, though, that all major decisions were being made by a tighter circle around Bashar, including Maher and the Makhloufs. These men’s orders were to show no mercy to protesters and to shoot to kill in order to scare people off the streets, and they sabotaged Assef’s de-escalation attempts.
Manaf considered Assef a friend and an ally, and they met frequently. While they shared criticism of Maher, the Makhloufs, and the uncompromising loyalists around Bashar, they were also extremely cautious of one another. Manaf sensed Assef’s frustration with the situation and Bashar’s strategy, but there was never any frank talk about defection or a palace coup. Everyone in the regime kept their cards close to the vest. They often spoke in code; it was hard to discern plans and motives.37
What Manaf did not know at the time was that Assef had secretly reached out, mainly through trusted businessmen, to several foreign intelligence services including the CIA as early as the summer of 2011 to tell them he opposed the scorched earth campaign led by Bashar and his brother and cousins and that he had an alternative plan to resolve the conflict.38 That same summer a senior Turkish official met with Bashar to urge elections and a new government that would keep Bashar president but bring in an Islamist Sunni prime minister and Assef Shawkat as defense minister. It was then that Bashar and his brother began to fret over Assef’s loyalty and set out to blunt all his moves.
“So now you’re unemployed, like me,” joked Manaf with Assef after the failure of his Homs mission and as Bashar readied to attack the city in early 2012.39
Assef was not going to give up easily. He had faced off with Maher before. Assef defied Maher by negotiating a truce with some rebels near Damascus. The Assad brothers were alarmed by the fact that some leaders in the Crisis Cell seemed to be taking Assef’s side. It was the kind of rift that Bashar could not afford to have as pressure on his regime mounted at home and abroad. In late May 2012, before Manaf’s escape, Assef had survived an attempt by his regime rivals to kill him by poisoning his takeout lunch.40
Assef then stepped up his secret contacts with several of the countries that were lined up against Bashar.41 He wanted to know what they were ready to offer him if he were to turn on Bashar. He was someone with a long and bloody history both inside and outside Syria in the service of the Assad family. He was a member of the dreaded clan that Syrians had risen up against. Assef had been under US sanctions since 2006, and fresh sanctions and asset freezes were imposed on him and his family after the uprising in 2011.
But working to Assef’s advantage were years of relations with regional and Western intelligence agencies. He regarded Phillipe Rondot, a retired senior French intelligence officer with whom he had extensive dealings, as a dear friend.42 Assef and his wife, Bushra, and their children often vacationed in France.
Before Manaf’s defection, Assef sent a secret message to the French declaring his intention to break with Bashar. They looked into ways to assist him, but then it was too late.43
What Assef and the French and their allies did not know was that Bashar and Iran were also secretly plotting their next dramatic chess move.
On July 15, 2012, ten days after the announcement of Manaf’s defection and one day after France commemorated the storming of the Bastille, thousands of rebels from around Damascus raided the capital. Aided by sympathizers and collaborators on the inside, they christened their operation “Damascus Volcano.”44
Fighting was concentrated mainly in neighborhoods on the city’s south side, but rebels managed to cut off key highways, including the one to the airport. In the meantime, Assef got into a huge argument with his longtime nemesis, Maher, over whom was to blame for the stunning breach of the capital’s defenses. Assef was at his Damascus villa with his wife and children when Maher called him.45
Maher was so angry that his screaming could be heard by Assef’s children, who sat nearby.
“Pack up, we are going to Moscow!” a visibly shaken and upset Assef told his wife, Bushra, afterward. He then called Bashar to ask permission to take a break with his family for a week in Moscow.
“Postpone it. This is absolutely not the right time,” Bashar told him.46
Over the next two days fighting inched closer to the city center. There was an exchange of gunfire near parliament and the central bank, close to Bashar’s residence. Rumors spread that Bashar and his family had left Damascus and flown to Latakia on the coast.
“We’re coming for you!” vowed one rebel on Al Jazeera, addressing Bashar.47
On July 18, the regime convened a Crisis Cell meeting at the headquarters of the National Security Bureau, a bunker-like cinder-block structure nestled among residential buildings in the Rawda neighborhood, near Bashar’s home. Embassies were all around. This was one of the capital’s most secure zones.
Several of the mukhabarat chiefs who were part of the Crisis Cell and were supposed to be there, given the gravity of the situation, did not show up that morning.48 Before midday, Syrian state television announced that Assef, along with the defense minister, Dawood Rajha, and Hassan Turkmani, a top general and presidential adviser, had all been killed in a “terrorist explosion” while they were meeting.49 Hardly anyone in the neighborhood had heard the blast or seen smoke from its aftermath. The TV announcement was made with highly uncharacteristic speed, efficiency, and even serenity, considering that this was supposed to be a strike directly to the regime’s heart. Everything seemed preplanned. The army issued a statement vowing to avenge “the martyrs,” and the new defense minister spoke on TV. Later that same day, the interior minister, Mohammad al-Shaar, who had been at the same meeting but was only lightly wounded in one arm, was seen laughing and cracking jokes at the hospital where he was taken.50
At least four different rebel groups claimed they had carried out the attack.
After Assef’s death, a relaxed-looking Bashar was shown swearing in the new defense minister at the presidential palace in Damascus. Bashar skipped the military funeral held for Assef and the two other top generals and sent instead his vice president, Farouq al-Sharaa, who had been under house arrest ever since Arab states called on Bashar to step down and transfer his powers to Sharaa seven months earlier.51 Sharaa was let out just for the funeral—a show of cold-bloodedness and vengefulness that rivaled the plot of any Hollywood gangster film. What better way to forewarn Sharaa about the perils of defection than to have him officiate the funeral of Assef and the others.
Bashar also skipped Assef’s burial ceremony in his hometown in western Syria, where throngs of regime loyalists massed and chanted Bashar’s name.52
In tandem with these dramatic developments, regime artillery positioned on Mount Qasioun, helicopter gunships, and tanks unleashed their fury on neighborhoods overrun by rebels. Most of the rebels were armed only with assault rifles. Their most sophisticated weapon was probably a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. Thousands of Damascenes fled to Lebanon.53
Older residents said that the last time the capital had been shelled this viciously and indiscriminately was by the French during the waning days of their mandate over Syria in 1945.
In Paris, Manaf was thunderstruck at the news of Assef’s death.
He did not have the slightest doubt that it was an inside job executed with Bashar’s full knowledge and approval because of concerns over Assef’s loyalty.54
A French official with whom Assef had communicated his desire to defect agreed. “Assef was killed by people in the heart of the regime because they thought he was being prepared as an alternative for Bashar.”55