Hama province governor assassinated: Syria state TV

DAMASCUS - Agence France-Presse

A file handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on July 11, 2011, shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) meeting with the new governor of the central city of Hama, Anas Naim. AFP photo / SANA

The governor of Hama province in central Syria was killed in a car bombing on Aug. 25, state television reported, in an attack it blamed on rebels.

"Terrorists assassinated Anas Abdel Razzaq al-Naem, the Hama governor, in a car bomb attack in the Jarajma district of Hama," it said.

The council of ministers said that Naem "died as a martyr, killed by criminal gangs". Naem was appointed to the post in July 2011, four months after the beginning of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

He had replaced Khaled Abdel Aziz, who was sacked by Assad after massive anti-regime protests erupted in the town of Hama, where hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the regime before government troops arrived to crush the protests. Assad's father and predecessor Hafez al-Assad crushed a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the central Syrian city in 1982, killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people.