Assad Names New Defense Minister as Army 'Starts Leaving Hama'

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday appointed a new defense minister, state television reported, amid mounting Arab condemnation of nearly five months of deadly crackdown on dissent.

"President Assad has signed a decree naming General Daoud Rajha as the head of the defense ministry," the television report said.

The 64-year-old Rajha, who was the army's chief of staff, replaces General Ali Habib who had been defense minister since 2009.

State television said Assad had decided to remove Habib and replace him with Rajha in line with decisions he took after meetings residents of protest cities to make changes in top state positions.

But the report also said that Habib "has been ill for some time and his condition has deteriorated."

In April, less than a month after the start of pro-democracy protests in Syria, Assad ordered the formation of a new government after former premier Mohammed Naji Otri resigned on March 29.

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that “army units tasked with restoring security and stability to the city of Hama began leaving it after completing their mission of protecting civilians and tracking down the armed terrorist groups which had been wreaking havoc” in the city.

The agency quoted an official military source as saying that “the army units confronted the terrorists, showing high precision and professionalism and arresting a number of them to bring them to justice.”

The military source added that “normal life began to return gradually to the city.”

Hama and the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor have been rallying points for pro-democracy protests since mid-March.

Activists say more than 200 civilians have been killed in the central city of Hama since the army launched a violent crackdown on July 31.

In 1982, an estimated 20,000 people were killed in Hama when the army put down an Islamist revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad's late father, Hafez.

The president replaced the governor of Hama after a record 500,000 protesters rallied in the opposition bastion on July 1 calling for the fall of the regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Monday that seven people were killed, including a mother and her two children shot dead as they were fleeing a military assault on Deir Ezzor.

Later a sniper shot dead an 18-year-old woman in the city, the largest in eastern Syria, and an elderly woman was killed in the al-Joura district, the Observatory said, quoting local residents.

It also reported that security forces shot dead three people in the southern protest hub of Deraa as they took part in the funeral of a man who died on Sunday.

It identified one of the victims as Maan Awadat, brother of prominent dissident Haitham Manaa. "He was hit in the head, it was an assassination," said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory.

Witnesses and activists on Monday reported tanks and troops entering Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province bordering Turkey and carrying out "a large number of arrests," while tanks also deployed outside the town of Saraqeb.