Media websites were abuzz with rumors of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s death on Sunday, after he had supposedly been shot the previous day. But RT later heard from a source close to the government that the news is completely untrue.
The president was reportedly shot dead by his Iranian bodyguard,
then taken to a Damascus hospital, as roads were blocked and the
surrounding buildings seized by government forces. Then,
French weekly, Le Point, reported that the news was denied by the
Free Syrian Army. All while some Israeli and Lebanese sources
confirmed Assad’s death.
However, a source close to the Syrian government, in a conversation
with RT, has dismissed the rumors as outlandish, and the fact that
the news had spread at all, bizarre. “It’s not true. Definitely
it’s not. The first one to bring this news was an Israeli [website]
so it’s a shame to all the news channels, newspapers and websites
copying this thing without any source. Just the Israeli website
brought this news and all the channels [used]. So it’s ridiculous.
And he [Assad] doesn’t have an Iranian bodyguard.”
Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter have widely been
blamed for the rumor spreading so quickly.