General Tlass, whose multi-talented achievements include a treatise on garlic's place in Islamic life, later denied that he was attacking Mr Arafat personally, only his policy.

ECONOMIST: Making the cut

The influential Qatar-based television channel, Al Jazeera, reported that a member of the Tlass family, a Sunni clan that has been close to the president, had defected.

ECONOMIST: The Syrian uprising

France has recently touted Manaf Tlass, a defecting Sunni general from a powerful family hitherto close to the Assads, as a transitional figure an idea soon dismissed, however, by virtually all of the opposition.

ECONOMIST: Syria