* Like other defectors, Hijab is a Sunni Muslim
* Premier's post largely powerless, but symbolic blow
* U.S. says Assad losing control, urges him to quit
* Iranian captives killed, threatened by rebels
AMMAN, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Syria's prime minister fled the
country on Monday, denouncing the "terrorist regime" of Bashar
al-Assad as the United States hailed the highest level
government defection as a sign the Syrian president was losing
his grip.
Riyad Hijab, who like much of the opposition comes from
Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, was not part of Assad's inner
circle, but as prime minister and the most senior civilian
official to defect his departure dealt a symbolic blow to an
establishment rooted in the president's minority Alawite sect.
Opposition figures, buoyant despite setbacks in recent heavy
fighting around Damascus and Aleppo, spoke of an extensive and
long-planned operation to spirit not just Hijab but numerous
members of his extended family across the Jordanian border.
"I announce today my defection from the killing and
terrorist regime and I announce that I have joined the ranks of
the freedom and dignity revolution," Hijab said in a statement
read by a spokesman on Al Jazeera television. "I announce that I
am from today a soldier in this blessed revolution."
While pleased at the evidence that his flight had offered of
despair in high places in Damascus, few rebels seemed ready to
embrace Hijab as an ally, given his decades of loyal service to
the oppressive and corrupt rule of Assad's Baath party.
His departure is also unlikely immediately to weaken Assad's
grip on power. That is rooted in the army and an
Alawite-dominated security apparatus rocked by a bomb last month
that killed top officials, including Assad's brother-in-law.
A spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama hailed Hijab's
defection as a sign that the 40-year rule of Assad's family was
"crumbling from within" and said he should step down.
Months of predictions of his imminent collapse have yet to
come true, however. Heavy firepower, foreign backing in Tehran
and Moscow and a wariness in the West of the fragmented
opposition have left the 46-year-old president dug in and
fighting back, supported by a religious minority fearful for its
very survival.
One Arab broadcaster quoted Hijab's spokesman as saying he
would head to Qatar. The country is vocal among the
Western-allied, Sunni-led states whose opposition to Assad and
his Iranian, Shi'ite sponsors reflects the regional and
sectarian dimension of a conflict that began 18 months ago with
"Arab Spring" street demonstrations demanding democratic reform.
On Monday, a spokesman for rebel forces around Damascus said
three Iranians out of a group of more than 40 they were holding
captive had been killed in army shelling of rebel positions. He
said the rebels would kill the remaining prisoners if the
bombardment went on.
Iran says the captives were pilgrims travelling to Shi'ite
holy sites. The rebels, who seized them on Saturday, say they
suspect them of being Revolutionary Guards sent to assist Assad.
Iran's armed forces chief Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi warned
neighbouring states against involvement in Syria: "Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and Turkey are responsible for the blood that is being
spilled in Syria," he said.
DEFECTION
Syrian state television said Hijab had been fired, but an
official source in the Jordanian capital Amman said he had been
dismissed only after he fled across the border with his family.
Khaled al-Hbous, a senior figure in the rebel Free Syrian
Army for the area around the capital, said that his fighters had
helped Hijab flee the country: "Between 5:30 and 7:30 this
morning we did it," he told Reuters by telephone. "We secured
his entry to Jordan and the Jordanian army took him from us."
He gave no details - Damascus lies 100 km (60 miles) from
the border - but said more high-level defections would follow.
Fear of reprisals against relatives has, the opposition
says, deterred many senior officials from deserting their posts.
Along with Hijab's family, those of his seven brothers and two
sisters also had to be spirited to safety.
Hijab, aged in his late 40s, was a top official of the
ruling Baath party but, like other senior defectors so far from
the government and armed forces, he was also a Sunni and had
little real authority. Assad appointed Hijab, formerly
agriculture minister, as prime minister in June following a
parliamentary election which authorities said was a step towards
political reform but which opponents dismissed as a sham.
Syrian television said Omar Ghalawanji, previously a deputy
prime minister, had been appointed to lead a temporary,
caretaker government on Monday. He chaired a cabinet meeting at
which all other members were present, it said, denying a rebel
claim that other ministers had also fled.
"Defections are occurring in all components of the regime
save its hard inner core, which for now has given no signs of
fracturing," said Peter Harling at the International Crisis
Group think-tank.
"For months the regime has been eroding and shedding its
outer layers, while rebuilding itself around a large, diehard
fighting force," he said. "The regime as we knew it is certainly
much weakened, but the question remains of how to deal with what
it has become."
BOMB BLAST
A bomb hit the Damascus headquarters of Syria's state
broadcaster, but injuries were minor and transmission continued.
Rebels in districts of Aleppo visited by Reuters journalists
in recent days seemed battered, overwhelmed and running low on
ammunition after days of intense shelling of their positions by
tanks and heavy machinegun fire from helicopter gunships.
Syrian army tanks shelled alleyways where rebels sought
cover as a helicopter gunship fired heavy machineguns. Snipers
ran on rooftops targeting rebels. Women and children fled the
city, some crammed in the back of pickup trucks, while others
trekked on foot, heading to relatively safer rural areas.
Emboldened by the audacious bomb attack in Damascus that
killed four of Assad's top security officials last month, the
rebels had tried to overrun Damascus and Aleppo, the country's
commercial hub, near the Turkish border.
But the lightly armed rebels have been outgunned by the
Syrian army's superior weaponry. They were largely driven out of
Damascus and are struggling to hold on to territorial gains made
in Aleppo, a city of 2.5 million.
Damascus has criticised Gulf Arab states and Turkey for
calling for the rebels to be armed, and state television has
described the rebels as a "Turkish-Gulf militia", saying dead
Turkish and Afghan fighters had been found in Aleppo.
Paralysis in the U.N. Security Council over how to stop the
bloodshed persuaded peace envoy Kofi Annan to resign last week,
his ceasefire plan a distant memory.
The main focus of fighting in Aleppo has been the
Salaheddine district. Once a busy shopping and restaurant
district, it is now white with dust, broken concrete and rubble.
Tank shell holes gape wide on the top of buildings near the
front line, and homes of families have been turned into
look-outs and sniper locations for rebel fighters. Large mounds
of concrete are used as barriers to close off streets.
Lamp-posts lie horizontally across the road after being downed
by shelling.
Civilians trickle back to collect their belongings and check
on their homes. "Just to hold power he is willing to destroy our
streets, our homes, kill our sons," wept Fawzia Um Ahmed,
referring to Assad's counter-offensive against the rebels.
"I can't recognise these streets any more."