Syrian Minister commits suicide

CNN:

Syria's interior minister, who was head of the country's military intelligence in neighboring Lebanon for nearly 20 years, has committed suicide, officials said. Ghazi Kanaan's death was reported Wednesday, days before the expected release of a United Nations report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a prominent opponent of Syria's presence in Lebanon. The 63-year-old Baathist major general died in a Damascus hospital of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the interior ministry and other government ministers.

A very interesting development that naturally leads us to wonder if this was in fact a suicide. I doubt we will ever no for sure, but it is certainly plausible that he was assinated to dead-end the investigation into Hariri's death. Beyond that, Kanaan was a key figure of the 'old guard' that many think are actually running Syria. There was some indication that Bashar Al-Assad was fairly moderate before he became President of Syria, but their have been little signs of that since then. It will be interesting to see what result from these events.