Syria's air defense minister killed in fighting

DAMASCUS, Syria, May 19 (UPI) -- Gen. Hussein Ishaq, head of Syria's air defense, was killed in fighting near Damascus.

Although forces under his command have rarely been deployed in the three-year war between Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's government and rebel fighters because the rebels do not have an air force, the headquarters of the air defense is in a contested section of the Damascus suburbs.

Ishaq was wounded when rebels attacked an air base in the town of Mieiha Saturday, and died Sunday. He is one of the few high-ranking Syrian military leaders to be killed in the war.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in Britain, called Ishaq's death an "important psychological blow" to the Assad regime. Despite the war, a planned presidential election is scheduled to be conducted in June.