Syrian Defectors: "Army Ready To Strike Assad"

Syrian defectors claim 'army' ready to strike

Liz Sly, Lebanon
September 27, 2011.

DEFECTORS calling themselves the Free Syrian Army are trying to organise an armed challenge to President Bashar al-Assad's rule, signalling what some hope and others fear may be a new phase in a mostly peaceful protest movement to date.

For now, the shadowy entity seems mostly to consist of some big ambitions, a Facebook page and a few defected soldiers and officers who have taken refuge in the borderlands of Turkey and Lebanon.

''It is the beginning of armed rebellion,'' said General Riad Asaad, the dissident army's leader, who defected from the air force in July and took refuge in Turkey.

''You cannot remove this regime except by force and bloodshed,'' he said, speaking by phone from the Syria-Turkey border. ''But our losses will not be worse than we have right now, with the killings, the torture and the dumping of bodies.''


Read more: [link to www.smh.com.au]