Syrian General Killed by Gunmen in Damascus - NYTimes.com: The doctor, trained in Romania and France, came from an Alawite family with close ties inside the Assad government that has run Syria for the past 40 years, according to one activist in Syria who was piecing together his biography.
He is believed to have been the nephew of Mohamed al-Khouli, the former head of the widely feared Air Force Intelligence Directorate, the most powerful of the multiple security agencies that cement the government’s power.
The elder Mr. Khouli was a security adviser to President Hafez al-Assad until the president died in 2000.
The Assad clan is also from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that as a minority has dominated the Sunni majority since Mr. Assad first seized power in a 1970 coup.
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