Syrian forces arrest leading writer Ali Abdallah

> "Ten soldiers entered my father's house around 9:00 a.m. in the Damascus suburb of Qatana and took him. He just had heart surgery three weeks ago," Abdullah's son Mohammad told Reuters by phone from exile in Washington. Abdallah, a 61-year-old secular thinker, was released in May after spending four years in prison because of his membership of the Damascus Declaration, a pro-democracy group of intellectuals and opposition figures, and his criticism of President Bashar al-Assad's alliance with Iran's clerical rulers. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, editing by Tim Pearce).