Firas Tlass Offers to Finance Syrian Opposition with Worthless Assets- Syria Comment

Firas Tlass’ company is worthless. The brother of General Manaf Tlass is offering to finance a new Syrian opposition with worthless assets. His company, MAS, is bankrupt. Moreover, he has no access to it. According to knowledgeable sources, MAS, which stands for Min Ajl Suriyya or ‘For the sake of Syria’, was largely a worthless shell of a corporation even before he left the country. Now that he has left and declared himself a leader of the opposition, the Syrian authorities will requisition his assets, if they have not done so already, under Syria’s anti-terrorism law. Both Manaf Tlass and Michel Kilo have already had their assets nationalized under the anti-terrorism law. The Tlass family does not have access to any money in Syria. By offering Syrian assets to finance the opposition, he is offering hot air.

By Joshua Landis

If Firas Tlass were serious about putting up money, he would offer a dollar amount out of his personal assets. Instead he is offering a shell corporation that has been impounded.

It should be said that Firas’s initiative has nothing to do with his brother, Manaf, who has himself been trying to unify the opposition. By all accounts, the two brothers are no longer on speaking terms.

Manaf has recorded a long interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN in which he criticizes the Islamist wing of the opposition. He argues that the West is unwilling to supply the Syrian opposition with surface to air missiles necessary to ground Assad’s helicopters and jets because many opposition militias have become too Islamist and infiltrated by al-Qaida. The interview will be airing in the morning, some 10 hours from now.

The Syrian opposition is being ill served by Firas, who seems intent on upstaging his brother. Fratricide seems to be Syria’s destiny...

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