Deserters from Syria's army who have joined rebel forces
by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
Israeli daily paper Haaretz
21 December 2011
article abridged
More than 10,000 soldiers have deserted the Syrian army, sources say, with as many as half the conscripts not reporting in the last three call-ups.
According to Western intelligence agencies, even though the top brass is still loyal to President Bashar Assad, lower-level officers are deserting in large numbers, and in some cases, whole units have deserted en masse.
The army is considered the main factor safeguarding Assad’s regime, after mass protests began in the south in March and spread throughout the country, inspired by demonstrations elsewhere in the Arab world.
On Tuesday, at least 73 people were killed in Syria in clashes between the army and opposition, most of them in Homs in the west and Idlib in the northwest. The 73 dead added to the 100 who were killed on Monday, among them 14 soldiers ambushed by opposition forces, human rights groups said.
The groups added that Assad’s forces were transferring wounded opposition activists from hospitals to army bases to prevent them from testifying to Arab League observers expected to arrive under a deal struck on Monday.
A new law imposes the death penalty on anyone “smuggling arms to be used in terrorist activity.”
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the unrest in Syria, most of them anti-Assad activists. Still, the army has suffered many losses, mainly from ambushes by opposition forces and ex-soldiers. In some remote districts the opposition groups are getting stronger and the army is having problems operating.
The opposition is still weak in the two large cities, Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The Syrian Republican Guard, concentrated mostly in Damascus, is well armed and considered loyal to Assad, making it more difficult to organize demonstrations in the capital.
Still, even in Damascus, rockets have been launched at army vehicles.
