A Syrian Air Force general defects

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Redwan Nadoush, a general from the Intelligence Department of the Syrian Air Forces, defected from the Syrian military and joined the dissident Free Syrian Army (FSA) more than two months ago, Hürriyet Daily News has learned.

“There are many officials who have defected from the army recently. They form their own brigades within the Free Syrian Army. Three weeks ago another general also defected from the army, but we cannot reveal his name yet,” said Khaled Khoja, Turkey’s representative of the biggest umbrella organization of Syrian dissidents, the Syrian National Council (SNC), to Hürriyet Daily News on Feb. 1.

Khoja said FSA members were able to take control of some suburban areas that were about 10 km away from the center of the Syrian capital Damascus. “Battles are going on in the suburban areas such as Gota, Duma, Zabadani and Berze. From time to time the Syrian Army takes these areas under control, and then the control passes to the FSA forces again,” Khoja said.

Activists in eastern districts of Damascus had said troops fired in the air as they advanced beyond areas from which the dissident FSA withdrew. Khoja said defector soldiers joined the Free Syrian Army with their guns and rifles, which is how the group received weapons.

“FSA members are not given arms by any outsider. On the contrary, the Syrian Army gets arms from other countries such as Russia,” Khoja said.

Khoja said Syrian protestors and FSA members got involved in something that could not be reversed. “The resistance is going to continue until it gets a result. Now everybody knows it very well that if they surrender they will be killed. So all the dissidents know the only solution is resistance. If they give up, they will definitely lose. But if they continue to resist, they will either win or lose,” Khoja said.

“The only thing we trust is the resistance of the Syrian people. We don’t rely upon anything else.”