[6] He is the son of the former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass[7] and Lamia Al Jabiri, a member of an aristocratic Aleppo family.

[7] Tlass was promoted to the rank of one-star general in the Republican Guards, which is one of the core military units used to crush the uprising that began in 2011.

[21] He was also involved in reconciliation efforts in rural Damascus, including Douma, Daraa, al-Tall, Homs and his home town Rastan.

[20] Tlass tried to meet with Bashar al-Assad via a leading political figure who is not Syrian but is close to Assad a few days before leaving Syria.

[22] It was reported that he, along with 23 other officers,[23] defected to Turkey in early July 2012, after the Syrian intelligence services discovered he was a member of the opposition.

[25] On 6 July 2012, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated that Manaf Tlass was on his way to Paris[26] to join his family there.

[22] In early July 2012, sources close to Tlass reported that he was engaged by the state of Syria and had accused Assad's regime of "taking the country to hell."

[31] Tlass called on Syrians to unite and look towards a post-revolutionary Syria, in video address broadcast from Saudi Arabia on 24 July 2012.

Firas Tlass also admitted to offering humanitarian and relief aid to the Farouq Brigades in the Free Syrian Army which is commanded by his cousin Abdul Razzak Tlas.

[35] He confirmed his defection in an exclusive video for Saudi-based TV channel Al Arabiya and gave his first interview to the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

[36] Tlass then went to Turkey on 26 July 2012[37][38] where he met with the then Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the undersecretary of National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan.