By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow: Syrian rebels have claimed to have captured Housam al-Assad, the cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, the Al Arabiya news channel reported.
Assad’s cousin was arrested by the al-Farouq brigade of the rebel Free Syrian Army, according to Sheikh Adnan Al Arour, a Sunni Muslim preacher and a major Salafist leader in Syria.
“Housam al-Assad, the cousin of Bashar has been captured,” Arour announced on his Twitter account.
The 73-year-old Arour fled Syria under the rule of Hafez al-Assad following the 1982 massacre in his hometown of Hama and settled in Saudi Arabia.
He has become one of the symbolic figures of the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime.
The Syrian conflict has claimed up to 20,000 lives, according to various groups. The UN puts the toll at over 18,000 people, while Syrian authorities say 8,000 have died.