Nawaf Fares
نواف الفارس
Also known as: Ambassador to Iraq
Biography
Nawaf Fares was Syria's ambassador to Iraq and one of the most senior officials ever to defect from the Assad government. In July 2012, sixteen months into the uprising, he fled to Qatar and publicly announced his defection — becoming the highest-ranking diplomat to abandon Assad at that point. He was from Deir ez-Zor and had been a longtime Ba'ath party official. After defecting, he made a series of explosive claims: that the Assad government had authorized suicide bombings in Syria to blame on the opposition, that the regime had used chemical weapons, and that Assad had met with al-Qaeda figures. His defection was a significant propaganda and morale blow to the regime during the critical summer of 2012.