French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday that the defection of a Syrian general who had been close to President Bashar al-Assad and was now on his way to Paris showed that Assad's rule was unsustainable.

"Everybody considers this to be a blow for the government," Fabius told a news conference after a meeting of foreign ministers from Western and Arab states with Syrian opposition rebels. "(It) means that his close entourage is beginning to understand that the regime is unsustainable."

Fabius, who earlier confirmed the defection of Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in Syria's Republican Guard who went to military college with Assad, said he had no further information on his whereabouts.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said countries that do not impose sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government are effectively allowing killings to continue...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Paris conference that Russia and China must "pay a price" for blocking U.N. sanctions that might press Assad into stepping down.

As she spoke, Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in the Republican Guard who attended military college with Assad and fled to Turkey this week, was on his way to Paris, where his father, Assad's father's defense minister, has also taken up residence, a close family friend told Reuters.

There was no immediate sign that Tlas would throw in his lot with the rebels and an opposition source said he had no plans to attend Friday's meeting.

But his defection is the clearest signal yet that some in Assad's inner circle think his days in power are numbered, as an uprising that began in March 2011 with a groundswell of peaceful protest turns into a civil war with strong sectarian overtones.

While the lightly armed rebels are no match for Syria's large and well-equipped army, their hope lies in eroding loyalty and conviction within Assad's establishment to the point where it loses its hold on power.

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Editor's Note: Remember what countries are defending Syria when Progressives try to sell you the bologna of how effective the UN is: Russia, China and Iran.


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