BEIRUT — Syria’s former prime minister, who fled the country last week, said Tuesday in his first public appearance since his defection that the government of President Bashar Assad was crumbling internally under the pressure of relentless fighting against rebels and from betrayals by loyalists who want only to flee.
“Based on my experience and my position, the regime is falling apart morally, materially, economically,” the former official, Riad Farid Hijab, said at a news conference in Amman, Jordan. “Its military is rusting, and it only controls 30 percent of Syria’s territory.”
Hijab said he fled the Syrian capital, Damascus, because the government had threatened his family and he had no reasonable means to end the violence. He also urged the opposition to unify and move ahead with plans for a transitional government and “a civilian democratic state that preserves the right, justice and dignity of all Syrians.”
In Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, where communications seemed to be limited, fighting continued Tuesday, with rebels trying to hold contested areas amid an extended government ground assault. In and around Damascus, activists reported heavy shelling and growing numbers of refugees flowing out of the city.
