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Syria army rebels fight from the shadows
Rooters reports in the absence of any hard original facts.Thousands of soldiers who fled the regular army after it started cracking down on an eight-month protest movement have formed nebulous armed units loosely linked to the umbrella "Free Syrian Army," led by officers hiding in Turkey. Isolated inside cities across Syria, the fighters work like a shadowy guerilla operation, promoting slogans like "victory or death" and "death before humiliation." The deserters say they turned their guns against the state to protect peaceful protests in which some 3,500 are estimated by the United Nations to have been killed. The government, which says it has lost 1,100 security forces to the fighters, calls them foreign-backed "terrorist" groups. But it is hard for anyone to know much about these faceless men -- most journalists are barred entry into the country, and even protesters, whose demonstrations are surrounded daily by these armed masked guards, are unlikely to know their identity. Escorting parades isn't exactly the recommended MO for 'shadowy' guerilla groups. Which indicates to me defectors are thick on ground, which means things aren't looking good for pencilneck. As I said yesterday, pencilneck might have only 20K loyal Alawite troops. Although with rather more in the secret police, but secret police aint too good shooting it out in the field. Posted by: phil_b 2011-11-26 |
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