Soft-spoken preacher is new head of Syria opposition

[NewsCaster]

EPAMouaz al-Khatib has been named head of the National Coalition of Forces of the the Syrian Revolution and Opposition.By NBC News staff and wire reportsActivist preacher Mouaz al-Khatib has been elected as the first leader of a new Syrian opposition umbrella group that hopes to win international recognition and prepare for the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

Khatib, a former imam at the famous Umayyad mosque in Damascus, was voted as president in a poll in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Sunday.

Riad Seif, who proposed the initiative to form the new group, and female activist Suhair al-Atassi were chosen as deputies.

Delegates, who had struggled for days to find the unity their Western and Arab backers have long urged, said the coalition would ensure a voice for religious and ethnic minorities and for the rebels fighting on the ground, who have complained of being overlooked by exiled dissident groups.

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