AFP reports: A cousin of Syria’s president has shot dead a senior air force officer in a road rage incident in the Latakia coastal heartland of their minority Alawite community, according to a monitoring group.

Suleiman al-Assad, a first cousin once removed of Bashar al-Assad, killed Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh “because he overtook him at a crossroads” Thursday evening, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Assad “followed him, swerved the car around, got out and shot him dead”, said Abdel Rahman, whose group has contacts across war-torn Syria. [Continue reading…]