According to The Times magazine, the G8 leaders made it clear that President Bashar al-Assad's "henchmen" would be allowed to play a role in a rebuilt Syria in an attempt to engineer a coup against Bashar Assad.

According to the British newspaper, the G8 leaders promised that senior figures in the military, security services, and across the government would survive after Assad had gone.

The commitment, The Times said, was in part an attempt to learn the lessons of Iraq, where the swift disbanding of Saddam Hussein's military and political apparatus triggered violent sectarian conflict lasting years. It was also designed to encourage those close to the dictator to depose him from within and perhaps bring an end to the civil war, which has claimed some 93,000 lives since it erupted more than two years ago.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that the G8 wanted to persuade Assad loyalists who knew "in their hearts" that he must go that Syria would not collapse into hopeless instability without him.