By Abu Abdullah Al Horani; Translation by Dani Murad
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Hundreds of rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters have decided to abandon the conflict and moved to turkey, because they lost hope in the possibility of victory, while others are continuing to fight but switched between insurgent groups, rebel commanders and field activists said.
But, the real deep concerns and warnings have been raised among rebels and activists in southern Damascus, for the high-paced reverse defections taking place back to Assad’s side.
An officer in FSA intelligence in southern of Damascus, nicknamed "Al muqadam Al-ghazanfar” revealed that the regime has active cells who work on concluding agreements with the “easily-lured persons” in FSA to hand themselves over to the regime, with their total consent, and not only that, since the regime stipulated in any operation that each person or two hand over their rifles, in order to be exempted from punishment and save their lives.
According to Al-ghazanfar, hundreds of fighters and civilians have been seen surrounding to Assad’s forces across the front lines recently, pointing out that the fate of some who have "regularized their status” is unknown, while others are released immediately and returned to their normal life.
Abu Ahmad al-Musheer, leader of “Aknaf Bait al Maqdis” (Defenders of Jerusalem), attributed the spread of this phenomena to an ideological dimension, since many of those who joined the revolution don’t have a legitimate and clear objective as he described, and their contribution was temporary, and therefore after the prolongation of the revolution, the fighter found himself as “the ship without a sail hit by strong waves”, and so it was easy for him to retreat, because he wasn’t a believer in the revolution’s principals in the first place. “The siege which the people in south of Damascus have suffered from, was the real test for the true believers in the revolution”, he added.
While Abu Mahmoud al-shamsawi, FSA leader in southern Damascus, puts the blame on the national coalition and the chief of staff for their negligence in supporting rebels and their resistance in an area that was weakened by hunger and cruel siege imposed by the regime, which lasted for more than a year and a half.
“These harsh circumstances forced the hungry people to more despair scarifying their lives by crossing to dangerous places searching for food. Armies need supplies, what do you expect from a hungry army who was abandoned by everyone”, he adds.
Despite that, al-shamsawi who controls with his fighters vast areas of "Tadamun" neighborhood in Damascus, doesn’t believe that these reverse defections are bad, considering them as garbling the honest fighters who can be relied upon in any military operation, saying: “a hundred truthful and persistent fighters are better than thousand defeatist ones, it’s a blessing from God to be able to distinguish the malignant from the good”.
For his part, Obeda Abdullah, the media activist agrees with al-shamsawi’s point of view, but adds another reason for the defections, which is the psychological factor, since few victories have been achieved by the FSA in south of the capital against the loss of large areas in the countryside recently, the thing which led to a decline in the morale of the fighters who started to believe that there is no point in their resistance in that area, on the other hand, the regime was working on the strategy of "reconciliation", an amnesty offer that allow the return of fighters willing to lay down their arms and be welcomed “warmly” by the regime.
Omar Ajwa, a young man in his twenties, fought a lot in the ranks of the free Syrian army, and was one of those who surrounded to Assad’s forces recently with his weapon, at the crossing of Yarmouk refugee camp. After being detained for two days in "Palestine intelligence Branch" Omar was released and called his old fellow fighters , saying to them: “ hand yourself over to the regime, get out of the hell you are living in, come and watch how Damascus’s people are living their lives normally, and no one cares about your suffering.
Activist and psychological expert "Khaled Haddad," commented on that by saying : “ the regime has learned from its past mistakes and is working on regaining its lost popularity, using cunning and duplicity to achieve its goals by adopting the policy of “Machiavellianism” or “The end justifies the means”.
According to Khaled, this method has been used in southern of Damascus “Yarmouk Camp” starting with the siege and starvation until the humanitarian situation became intolerable, then the regime agreed to open humanitarian corridors to enter the food in return for signing truces and reconciliations with some areas there, under the slogan of "hunger or kneel ".
“It was a big moral blow to FSA fighters and led to a state of despair and collapse among them for their inability to break the siege, in the same time, the regime invested this phenomenon in the media to gain more popularity as the peace-making authority, particularly among its supporters, not to mention using these reconciliations to empty opposition areas from rebels and weapons", he concluded.
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