High Ranking Officers Desert, Join Rebels
by Arutz Sheva Staff
A Syrian Major-General has deserted Assad’s army along with a group of other officers and joined the rebels.
In an Arabic video clip posted on Youtube on July 29, 2011, the officer, Major-General Riad El As’ad is seen in the company of other officers, announcing the establishment of the “Free Syrian Army whose main goal will be to fight the army of oppression headed by President Bashar Assad”.
As’ad accused the Assad regime of crimes against the Syrian people and called on the officers and soldiers in the Syrian army not to aim their weapons at the people. He further called on them to join the Free Syrian Army.
The major-general warned that the Free Army will eliminate any soldier who acts to harm his own people. The present army commanders do not represent the army, he continued, they are acting for the criminal gang that controls the media and prevents the people from obtaining truthful information on what is happening.
In recent weeks, a large number of officers and soldiers have deserted the regular Syrian army. In one instance, there was a mutiny and at least ten of the soldiers participating were shot and killed. Assad continues to control the country, but the violent protest against him goes on and has even reached the outskirts of Damascus. Tension is high between the Alawites, the minority Shite sect to which Assad belongs that controls the country, and the majority Sunni sect which is 70% of the Syrian population.
The former Vice President of Syria, Abd Al-Halim Khaddam, Assad’s bitter enemy, speaking from France, opined that Assad will fall only if the army disintegrates. That disintegration may have begun.
This is the same Assad who supports Hezbollah, extinguished Lebanese independence and sponsored terrorism against US troops in Iraq. Not to mention his alliance with Iran. Breaking up the Shiite Crescent is in Israel’s long term interests.
Assad will continue to cling to power to the bitter end. The regime’s crisis though will not be solved with more brutal force against its own people. Right now, there is a stalemate between the still strong central state and the coalescing nationwide opposition. The situation right now is like what Iran was a year before the Shah fell. And Assad will not go gently into that good night.
So lopng as the Arabs fight one another, they leave Israel alone. Arnold is correct. Better to know which enemy is worse.
I hope Assad survives and stays in power. Why? Because yet another Arab Spring in Damascus would lead to renewed pressure on Israel to abandon the Golan Heights. I care more about Israel keeping the Golan Heights, and conquering and holding onto a lot more Golan Heights, than I care about peace, democracy, the rights of mankind or all the rest of the stupid sloganeering that passes for political discourse these days. So let Assad fuck over the the Syrian Arabs all he wants. I will be the first to cheer him on.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Syrian opposition is a CIA led Islamic Brotherhood executed rebellion.
Don’t count the Assads out just yet, even with some military defections. look what happened just now in the Libyan rebel camp:
Libyan Rebel Supreme Commander Younis, Two Colonels Murdered by al Qaeda Faction
CIA’s Hifter Prime Suspect in Slayings; Jalil Lies as Front Man for Terrorists; Tribal Warfare Looms; UN Mandate to Expire in September; Top Hawk Anne Marie Slaughter Admits NATO Defeat in Financial Times
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTVPressTV
NATO, Facing Defeat in Libya, Lashes out in Barbaric Bombing of Television Studios as Attack Coalition Crumbles
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTVPressTV
July 30, 2011
Gaddafi will get even, count on it.