Steady Stream of Syria Army Defectors Feeds Rebels
Syrian soldiers awaiting a chance to desert are hoping to follow an already large number of others who have already scaled the walls or crawled under barbed wire at night to escape.
Damascus may soon begin haemorrhaging troops, despite claiming that it is gradually cleaning the country of “terrorists,” if defections continue to rise among conscripts from the Sunni Muslim majority, the human backbone of the army.
Abu Anas, a 23-year-old who declined to give his real name, waited and watched for eight months at Ash-Shaal army base near Aleppo for the right moment.
It finally came on Saturday night.
“After night fell, with my Kalashnikov and my uniform, I used the changing of the guard to scale a wall. It was not high,” the thin, bespectacled young man said at a rebel base near Aleppo.
“I then crawled under the barbed wire and ran through a dark passage sheltered from the glare of two spotlights.”
Abu Anas joined a rebel Free Syrian Army unit, where he underwent security checks before being given back his assault rifle.
He stresses that he wants to fight, which is not the case with all deserters, many of whom prefer to return to their families or leave the country.