Assad quickly recovered from the loss of his four top allies last Wednesday, July 18 and replaced them with a new command for fighting the rebels headed by his brother Gen. Maher Assad,DEBKAfile reports exclusively. Gen. Ali Mamloukh is new General Security Service head; Gen. Hafez Makhlouf military commander of Damascus; and Gen. Ali Hassan chief of the Alawite Shabiha militia. In retaliation against Turkey, the Assad government permitted Kurdish PKK rebels fighting Turkey from Iraq to establish bases on the Syrian-Turkish border.