By The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, December 26, 2012, 9:38 p.m.
Updated: Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Syria's wounded interior minister cut short his treatment in a Beirut hospital on Wednesday and returned home for fear of being arrested by Lebanese authorities, while Syria's chief of military police defected to the opposition, becoming one of the highest-ranking officers to switch sides.

The twin developments reflected the deepening isolation of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, which has suffered a number of setbacks on the battlefield as well.

In the latest challenge, rebels forged an attack on a military base in the northern province of Idlib after laying siege to it for weeks.

The defector, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, is one of the most senior members of Assad's regime to join the opposition during the 21-month-old revolt against his rule.

Al-Shallal appeared in a video that aired on Arab TV late Tuesday saying he was casting his lot with “the people's revolution.”

The general said the military “has become a gang for killing and destruction,” and he accused it of “destroying cities and villages and committing massacres against our innocent people who came out to demand freedom.”

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar, who was wounded in a suicide bombing on Dec. 12 in the capital, Damascus, and was brought to Beirut for treatment a week ago, left the hospital early and flew home to Damascus on a private jet, officials at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport said.

A top Lebanese security official said al-Shaar was rushed out of Lebanon when authorities there received information that international arrest warrants could be issued for him because of his role in the deadly crackdown against Syrians.

Over the past week, some Lebanese officials and individuals had called for al-Shaar's arrest for his role in a bloody 1986 assault in the Lebanese city of Tripoli.

It was a testament to how internationally isolated Assad's regime has become that even in Lebanon, a country Syria controlled for decades, Syrian government officials cannot feel at ease.

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