Syrian forces arrest leading writer Ali Abdullah

Amman: Syrian troops on Sunday arrested prominent writer Ali Abdullah, a fierce critic of the state's use of violence against a four-month uprising against four decades of autocratic rule, his son said.

"Ten soldiers entered my father's house around 9am 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.

Abdullah, 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.