Syrian PM Riad Hijab flees to Jordan

Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab announced Monday he was joining the rebels after slipping across the border into Jordan during the night in the highest-ranking defection of the nearly 17-month uprising.

Hijab was one of the leading Sunni Muslims in President Bashar Al Assad’s minority Alawite-dominated regime.

In Damascus, state television put out a terse report announcing that Hijab had been dismissed. It said Deputy Prime Minister and Local Government Minister Omar Ghalawanji had been appointed caretaker premier.

The 46-year-old Hijab was only appointed on June 6 following a widely boycotted May 7 parliamentary election that was hailed as a centrepiece of reform by the Assad regime but dismissed as a farce by Arab and Western governments.

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