Dozens Defect From Syrian Army, But Impact Is Limited
The ranks of defectors from the Syrian army who streamed into southern Turkey recently included a brigadier general, two colonels and two majors. While these are dramatic developments, writes Rania Abouzeid, they may not have much of an effect on the larger battle since the rebel ranks suffer from fissures in their own structure.
The ranks of the Syrian defectors who streamed into southern Turkey recently read like quite the roll call: a brigadier general, two colonels, two majors, a lieutenant, and dozens of soldiers, along with their families, according to press reports. Some 200 people in all, a logistical feat across an increasingly tense border between once friendly neighbors. The defections were announced shortly after the spectacular desertion of a Syrian fighter pilot who flew his Mig into Jordan, where he has been granted political asylum. Dramatic developments, to be sure, but how significant are they in terms of the larger battle between Syrian rebels and loyalists? What do these defections add up to?
The upper-echelons of Assad’s formidable military and intelligence apparatus have remained largely intact, in part because of shared interests, but also shared culpability. Those are bonds cemented with blood, bonds shared given that much of the upper officer corp is stacked with Assad’s Alawite co-religionists as well as select elites from other sects. The other glue keeping the security forces together is fear of retribution against a defector’s family.
While the defections are contributing to the slow erosion of Assad’s army, the FSA has serious cracks of its own, particularly with regard to command and control. It has always been a loose franchise organization, comprised of localized groups of defectors and civilians waging an escalating guerrilla campaign in their hometowns and cities. There is minimal centralized control from the so-called leadership sequestered in a Turkish refugee camp and many units inside Syria, while pledging allegiance to the FSA, don’t take orders from its leadership in exile.
As’aad has been very publicly sidelined by the FSA’s military council in the embattled city of Homs, which has said that exiles have no right to speak for the armed opposition fighting and dying inside Syria. The splits within the franchise are not merely between high-ranking defectors inside and outside Syria, there have been sub-splits within those groups. In the past, high-ranking breakaways who have joined other officers in the Apaydin camp, like General Mustafa al-Sheikh, have been viewed as rivals by other senior earlier defectors like As’aad. The two men only recently buried their differences by forming a joint military council in late March.
