CAIRO/AMMAN, (Reuters) – The head of Syria’s main opposition group resigned yesterday, in a blow to a diminishing moderate wing of the two-year uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Moaz Alkhatib, a former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus who had offered Assad a negotiated exit, was picked to head the Western and Gulf-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces in November after leaving Syria following persecution and several stays in jail.
Al-Khatib’s resignation came after the coalition berated him for offering Assad a deal and after the group went ahead, despite his objections, with steps to form a provisional government that would have further diminished his authority.
“I had promised the great Syrian people and promised God that I would resign if matters reached some red lines,” Alkhatib said in a statement on his official Facebook page, without explaining exactly what had prompted his resignation.
