BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian general Manaf Tlas, a friend and ally of President Bashar al-Assad who headed a unit of the elite Republican Guard, has fled Damascus and is on his way to Paris, a close family friend and the French government said on Friday.
"He left Syria and arrived yesterday in Turkey. He wants to come to France to join his family," the friend told Reuters by telephone from the French capital. He declined to give details of Tlas's flight from Syria, where witnesses said security officials had ransacked his home in Damascus on Thursday.