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400 officers defected Syrian army last January, mostly high ranks: leaked list

(By Ethar Abdulhaq; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)

Zaman al-Wasl has obtained an exclusive list of members defected from the regime’s forces, soldiers and non-commissioned officers, were reported in the beginning of this year. Surprisingly, dozens of the defected members were from areas of complete sectarian loyalty to the Syrian regime.

The other warning point of the new lists of is that many of the defected members were from the elite groups like the republican guards and the defence brigades and special forces, who were the carefully selected, armed and trained groups, and their commanders were very trusted and close to Bashar and Maher al-Assad.

The lists contained 1017 names, defected from different military battalions, brigades and troops, dozens of them from the Alawite sect.

Moreover, many of defected names were of prominent and well known Alawite families and like Khadour, Slitin, Omran, Reedi, Salhab, Wasouf, Jdid, Saqer, Hmesheh and Rahija, and others.

The first list showed that 422 members defected from the regime forces, in January 2015, 73 sergeant and first sergeant, 46 corporal, making about 30% of all defected members, at 13 one daily average, the highest number was in 4th January at 33 member, almost no day passed without defection, that refutes the regime’s claims that defections has become rare and at individual bases.

Defection among the republican guard despite the privileges they have, and the military intelligence, who are responsible to observe soldiers and officers and prevent any defection attempt, gives an idea about the weakness and cracks in within the Syrian regime.

Another serious issue the lists have shown that 70 members have defected with their arms, indicting the level of drainage in the regime forces at military and human levels.
However the most serious piece of information of the recent list of defected members was the ability to know the bases of defected members.

Details of defection numbers of the Elite Units and the Republican guard in January 2015:
Troop 101 and troop 102 of the Republican Guard, 33 members and 16 members respectively.
62 members defected from troop 104, and 40 members of troop 105, the strongest troop of the republican guard, and its commander, Monaf Tlas, the close friend of  al-Assad defected in 2012.

Troop 106 had 42 members reported as defected. Troop 124 of Republican Guards had 20 defected members, while 20 members left troop 47 of the special forces.

Zaman Al Wasl
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