President Bashar al-Assad's former defence minister has fled Syria.
General Ali Habib was the most senior of Assad's Alawite sect to defect.
Habib had been under house arrest since resigning in protest at Assad's crackdown on demonstrators in 2011 but had managed to reach the Turkish border late on Tuesday, Kamal al-Labwani of the Syrian National Coalition told Reuters.
uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/uk-syr...dUKBRE97S0LQ20130904