Assad relative badly wounded in gunfight

A prominent relation of President Bashar al-Asad has been seriously wounded in a gun battle between factions of Alawite gangs divided over loyalty to the Syrian leader.

Mohammed al-Assad, the head of the Shabiha militia in the family’s ancestral mountain town of al-Qardaha and known locally as the “Sheik of the Mountain”, reportedly overheard a conversation by members of the town’s other main Alawite clans.

“The families were angry that their sons are dying on the front lines in fighting for Bashar, when the Assad family itself has had very few of its members killed,” said a female resident of Latakia province, using the name Ega.

Assad, who is from the same generation of the family as the president, is said to have drawn a revolver and fired into the air, provoking a gunfight that reportedly continued throughout the night.

As a minority sect in Syria, Alawites have long expressed fears that they will suffer a backlash from the mainly Sunni opposition should the Assad regime fall.