QARDAHA, Syria — On the walls of the palatial mausoleum built to house the remains of former Syrian President Hafez Assad, vandals have sprayed variations of the phrase, “Damn your soul, Hafez.” Nearly two weeks after the ouster of his son, Bashar Assad, people streamed in to take photos next to the burned-out hollow where the elder Assad’s grave used …
The Sunni-led Islamist rebels who toppled Syria's Bashar al-Assad met elders in the former president's Alawite hometown on Monday and received their support, in what residents said was an encouraging sign of tolerance from the country's new rulers. The rebel delegation visited Assad's hometown of Qardaha in the mountains of Latakia province in northwest Syria, meeting with dozens of religious …
