Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab announced he was joining the rebels on Monday after slipping across the border into Jordan during the night in the highest-ranking defection of the nearly 17-month uprising. Hijab was one of the leading Sunni Muslims in President Bashar al Assad’s minority Alawite-dominated regime. He accused his former master of carrying out “genocide” against his own people but said four decades of Assad family rule were collapsing. “I announce my defection today (Monday) from the regime of killing and terror, and I join the ranks of the revolt,” Hijab said in statement read by his spokesman Mohammed al-Otri on Al-Jazeera news channel from Amman. “Syria is passing through the most difficult war crimes, genocide, and barbaric killings and massacres against unarmed citizens,” he said. Hijab’s home province of Deir Ezzor in the northeast has been one of the key battlegrounds of the conflict and seen a mounting death toll from operations by the army in recent weeks.
Assault: Word of Hijab’s defection came as the army readied a major ground assault against rebels in commercial capital Aleppo, who say they control half of the city of some 2.7 million people.
