Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday appointed Health Minister Wael al-Halki as prime minister of the country, week after Prime Minister Riyad Hijab detected to the rebels.
Mr Hijab’s defection across the border to Jordan dealt blow to Mr Assad’s authority, already shaken by the assassination last month of four of his top security officials.
Halki, born in 1964, is from the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against four decades of Assad family rule erupted. He replaces caretaker premier Omar Ghalawanji who was appointed hours after Hijab’s defection.
Like Hijab, Halki is from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority. Sunnis have been the driving force of the 17-month-old uprising.
Assad’s Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, dominates political and military power circles.
Meanwhile, in the new developments in the fight between rebels and government troops in Aleppo district of Salaheddine, a southern gateway to the city, the rebels have been forced to fall back from some frontline positions today by a bombardment that had reduced buildings to rubble.
“There have been some withdrawals of Free Syrian Army fighters from Salaheddine,” rebel commander Abu Ali said, adding that rebels were regrouping for a counter-attack.
Another combatant said at least 30 people had been killed in Salaheddine, where fighting has ebbed and flowed for two days.
It is to be mentioned here that according to estimates, more than 20,000 people have been killed in Syria since the popular uprising against the Assad regime last year.
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