Syria suffers series of embarrassing defections
The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has suffered a series of defections, handing the opposition a propaganda coup amid growing demands for international intervention.
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent
6:42PM GMT 16 Jan 2012
Following the flight to Turkey of a brigadier-general, Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, a second military leader was filmed announcing his defection to opposition supporters inside the country.
In a clip posted to YouTube, he is shown wielding his identity card to a cheering crowd standing in front of the green, white and black new revolutionary flags of the opposition as he says he is joining them.
That took place in Homs province, the epicentre of the uprising, and one of whose members of parliament, Imad Ghalioun, announced from Cairo he was also leaving in protest.
"The Syrian people are living their worst period," Mr Ghalioun told the Al-Arabiya news channel. "The people of Homs are under siege and the city is disaster-stricken. There is no electricity, piles of garbage fill the streets.
"The sounds of shelling all night terrify children."
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Diplomats, analysts and even members of the opposition insist that Mr Assad's power base is under no direct threat. After arriving in Turkey, which has become the base of the opposition Free Syrian Army, Gen. Sheikh said he estimated 20,000 soldiers had defected from a total army strength of near 300,000.
That figure is half the number claimed by the FSA's founder, Col Riad al-Assad, as having joined his group.
However, there are unmistakable signs of Mr Assad's grip failing. Parts of Homs province and the northern province of Idlib are clearly under rebel control, insofar as they are under regular attack from the military, though the opposition is unable to establish the sort of control exercised by renegade cities in Libya last year.
His forces raided Aleppo University on Sunday night after a protest by students there. The city, Syria's second largest and most loyal, has so far proved most immune to protest.
Amr al-Azm, a Syrian exile and academic in the United States, said Mr Assad's increasingly belligerent tone, despite occasional offers of amnesties such as one on Sunday, meant a long-drawn out civil war was the most likely outcome.
"The regime is set on war and the opposition is arming up," he said. "If the Arabs want to avoid a total fracturing of Syria they have to intervene either way: send troops in or let someone else do it."
The Arab League is to meet on Saturday and Sunday to discuss the findings of its peace monitoring mission to the country. It has so far ruled out seeking United Nations support, but that might change, particularly after Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, called at the weekend for Arab troops to be sent to intervene.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, made an unusual appeal for action by his own Security Council, which has so far been prevented from taking a position by Syria's strategic allies, Russia and China.
"The situation has reached an unacceptable point," he said at an energy summit in Abu Dhabi also attended by the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao. "I sincerely hope that the Security Council will handle this in a sense of seriousness and gravity and in a coherent manner."
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Showing 5 comments
Jake_in_Louisiana
Today 07:21 AM
If anything can be said of the outlook for the conflict in Syria it is this; it is simply too complex to fix.
There are international political alignments at the U.N. that complicate any attempt at an international solution. There are interests aligned within the Muslim world, by which I mean something larger than just within the Arab world, in which Sunni and Shia agendas are at stake with everyone--especially Turkey--now finding itself in a position of reassessing its policies on a number of fronts and Iran becoming increasingly menacing to many Arabs. There are both religious and ethnic interests within Syria that make for a very unsettled coalition that backs Assad at the moment and which is shrinking daily. There are localized Arab interests at stake in which Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon all feel they have a stake to protect. And then there are larger Arab interests at risk, which is really the one driving force for change from the outside at the moment, and which also may eventually force others to change their tact and turn on Assad
This is a mess. Pity the Syrian people who have their backs against the wall right now because everyone who can help them is currently frozen in place
unclesam
Today 06:10 AM
he's standing there like hitler.
Heisham
Yesterday 10:38 PM
Isn't it ironic El -Assad, gets to issue amnesty to innocent scores of civilians throughout Syria, when he is the very criminal who instigated all the murder and mayhem?
Until he goes, the Peoples have a solemn and legitimate right to fight for their freedom, no but's or if's..
_______ hatebigots
35 minutes ago
Hey, lad, you realized by now, that most of crooks, thugs and other bullies love to say they are the victims or the heroes while the victims are the "real" criminals.
Its the rapist`s excuse: Its the victims`s fault!
SeniorMoment
Yesterday 07:18 PM
I can understand why the West with its current budget deficit problems is reluctant to intervene militarily in Syria, but I cannot understand why Arab nations have not aligned with Turkey to bring down the Bashar al-Assad by force. At the least they should conspire to create a safe zone for opposition within Syria rather than waitging for their borders to be rushed by Syrian refugees.
By and large the important defections are of soldiers more than of leaders,although having a general in charge of forces in Homs has to be good for the opposition to al-Assad. The international community though cannot risk waiting for a new equivlanet to the Warsaw Ghetto massacre. 20,000 soliders without access to all the ammo dumps and heavy armor cannot unaided defend against 280,000 well equipped soldiers who only have the possibility of defecting if under protection by previous defectors.
The Syrian Army has killed troops making obvious efforts to defect from the force, so those who have defected need at least the assurance of air superiority in conflict with the main Syrian Army, and that is somethign the West demonstrated in Libya without using any ground based forces.
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