Thursday, March 21, 2013

New Syrian Prime Minister Profile


Once IT manager in Texas, now top Syrian rebel



"At a time when there's so much baggage in the Middle East, they need an outsider. He's an outsider in the sense of no political loyalties."

Hitto has Kurdish heritage, one of the ethnic minorities in diverse Syria.

The general view about the civil war is that the al-Assad government is dominated by Alawites, and Sunni Arabs represent much of the opposition membership. But there are many more groups in Syria, ethnic and religious, and questions of allegiance or nonallegiance can be complicated and fluid. The choice of Hitto suggests that the opposition is working to be inclusive.