Rebel Free Syrian Army founder loses leg in Syria blast
ANKARA | Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:06am EDT
(Reuters) - Colonel Riad al-Asaad, founder of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), lost a leg in an explosion in Syria overnight and is in Turkey for treatment, a Turkish official said on Monday.
Asaad, who established the FSA in 2011 to fight for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, was one of the first senior officers to defect from the Syrian military.
The Turkish official, who asked not to be identified, said Asaad's wounds were not life-threatening.
Syrian opposition sources said Asaad had been hit by a car bomb in the city of al-Mayadin, south of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria. These accounts could not immediately be confirmed.
"The attempt to assassinate Colonel Riad al-Asaad in Deir al-Zor is part of an attempt to assassinate the free leaders of Syria," said Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned on Sunday as the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition.
Asaad was excluded from a Western-backed command of the FSA formed last year. Since his defection he has mostly lived with his family in a camp in Turkey along the Syrian border.
Various Syrian rebel factions fight under the umbrella of the FSA, which has struggled to find regular weapons supplies and build a disciplined command and control structure.
Some prominent Islamist militant groups, including the powerful al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, are not part of the FSA.
(Reporting by Jonathon Burch in Ankara and Khaled Oweis in Amman; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
