‘Assad puts intelligence chief under house arrest for planning coup’

Syrian President Bashar Assad has placed his top intelligence official under house arrest for allegedly conspiring with the regime’s enemies to carry out a coup, the British daily Telegraph reported on Monday.

Ali Mamlouk, who heads the National Security Bureau, was reportedly detained after he was suspected of maintaining contact with governments backing the Syrian rebels as well as oppositionists from abroad.
According to the Telegraph report, key associates of the president, including those with access to him, “are increasingly turning on each other.”

The newspaper cites sources within the presidential palace as saying that there is great dissension within the various intelligence arms, some of whose commanders are growing wary of Iran’s burgeoning influence in Damascus.

Factions within Assad’s “inner circle”  are weary of the role the Islamic Republic is playing in Syria’s domestic conflict and how much influence their officials are amassing in Damascus, while others are in support of Iranian patronage.

It was as Syrian troops lost control of Idlib city and Jisr al-Shughour to an alliance of Islamist rebels including Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s local branch, that Mamlouk reportedly began to make contact with hostile governments and former regime officials, the Telegraphadded.
Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Assad-puts-intelligence-chief-under-house-arrest-for-planning-coup-402719