Report: Top Syrian general Tlas defects

07/06/12: Al Jazeera reports a Syrian general and personal friend of President Bashar al-Assad is believed to have defected and fled Syria ahead of “Friends of Syria” talks in Paris between Western and Arab leaders.  Opposition activists said that Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in Assad’s Republican Guard, has fled to Turkey and will soon announce that he abandoned Assad because of anger at civilian deaths.  If the reports are true, then Tlas, who attended military college with the 46-year-old President Assad, would be the closest member of the Syrian leader’s inner circle to switch sides during the sixteen-month uprising.  Tlas is the son of Mustafa Tlas, who served as defense minister for thirty years under former president Hafez al-Assad, the current President’s father.