BEIRUT, Lebanon — Gunmen assassinated the brother of the Syrian Parliament speaker on Tuesday in a central Damascus neighborhood, the official Syrian news agency reported, as clashes between government forces and the rebels convulsed most major cities and seven defecting Syrian generals fled into neighboring Turkey.
The assassination victim, Mohammad Osama al-Laham, was felled by bullets fired into his car while en route to work, in the Midan neighborhood of Damascus, the Syrian capital, said an account by the news agency, SANA.
The agency attributed the attack to terrorists, the government’s standard description for the opposition to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and said the motive was to deprive Syria of skilled loyalists needed in the country. Mr. Laham, the brother of Jihad Laham, the speaker of the People’s Assembly, held a doctorate in agriculture...