Free Syrian Army in bid to be taken seriously

As Bashar Al Assad's bid to put down the uprising against him grew increasingly violent last July, a group of military officers released a video announcing they were defecting to fight their commander-in-chief.
They urged other officers and soldiers to join them under the leadership of air force Colonel Riyad Al Assaad, no relation to the president.
"I call on all the honourable members of the Syrian army to defect and cease pointing their weapons at their own people," Col Al Assaad said.
"I urge them to join the Free Syrian Army and help in forming a national army capable of protecting the revolution and the Syrian society in its various sects."
Today, from his base in Hatay in southern Turkey, Colonel Al Assaad leads his poorly armed but, he says, steadily expanding Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Although vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the insurgent army is increasingly taking the fight to Syrian security forces whose morale, he insists, is plummeting while the confidence of the rebels grows.
"Our biggest strength is the support of our people. This is the one thing we rely on," he told The National.
"We are not going to stop until the end. We are adamant in bringing this regime down even if we have to fight hand-to-hand."
About 9,000 civilians and government forces have been killed in the rebellion against Mr Al Assad's regime, although accurate figures are impossible to verify in the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings.
In Tunisia and Egypt, the army tipped the balance in favour of the protests. In Libya, large and organised groups defected and joined the revolutionaries. In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh handed over power peacefully, but there remain fierce divisions in the military.
But since the coup that brought Mr Al Assad's father, Hafez, to power in 1971, Syria's armed forces have been deliberately structured to promote disunity and mistrust, making mass defections unlikely.
The result is a fear and paranoia that permeates the institution of the military and has prevented large-scale, unit-sized defections during the uprising. Instead, most soldiers have quit the government forces on their own or in small groups of 20 or so, Col Al Assaad said.
"People don't trust each other. There is always the fear that the other, even your own brother, might be working for the Syrian secret police," he explained. "Large-scale defections require trust among the troops and the officers." He estimates his army's strength at 50,000, but most analysts say it is much smaller.
With its size a drawback, the strategy of the Free Syrian Army has been to defend civilians against government attack. But spurred by a massive bombardment of the rebellious city of Homs, they are going on the offensive, attacking military installations and convoys. They are now fighting in seven of Syria's 14 provinces, Col Al Assaad claimed.
"We waged a series of attacks in an effort to alleviate the pressure on our people in Homs, Idlib, Rif Dimashq [Damascus] and Aleppo," he said confidently. "We've had a number of successful operations so far."
Still, for the insurgents to tip the balance against government forces they need more than the donations being supplied by "honourable Syrian benefactors living overseas". They need advanced weapons.
When defectors, who account for more than 90 per cent of the rebel army, deserted, they fled with only light machine guns and other small arms.
Today, as more of Mr Al Assad's opponents enlist to fight, rebel commanders are having trouble finding enough weapons to put in their hands. One source, said Col Assaad, is "pro-regime thugs who wouldn't shy away from selling their own clothes for material gain".
Although the rebel army's headquarters are in Turkey and their bases are guarded by Turkish troops, Ankara's help to the insurgents has not extended beyond giving food and medical aid to them.
There is growing pressure to do more, for as an international consensus galvanises around the demand that Mr Al Assad relinquish power but with no sign that he will do so voluntarily, the rebel army looks like the best - and perhaps only - chance of toppling Mr Al Assad.
Colonel Al Assaad has no doubt that time and right are both on the rebel side.
"This is a criminal regime that has been feeding on blood for 40 years. His father before him was a murderer. They are a bloodthirsty group," he said angrily.
"They have no values or creed. They are nothing but a band of criminals."
He predicted that the regime could not survive for long on large-scale offensives against civilians. Sooner or later a critical mass of officers and soldiers will fully understand that instead of fighting a foreign enemy or defending the nation, they have been deployed against their fellow Syrians to defend the authority of one man and one party.
Already there is evidence that the Syrian army is a force at odds with itself and that its morale is weakening, according to Col Al Assaad.
"About 1,500 to 2,000 officers have been imprisoned for sympathising with the revolution. Ninety per cent of the government soldiers that were killed have been shot from the back," he alleged. As with the identities and numbers of other Syrian's killed and wounded in this war, the colonel's claims cannot be confirmed.
Next to his anger at the regime, Colonel Al Assaad reserves perhaps most of his disgust for Russia and China, which have blocked tougher United Nations Security Council measures against Damascus.
Moscow is a major ally of Syria, which accounts for 7 per cent of Russia's international arms sales and provides its only warm-water port outside Ukraine.
"We feel that our people are fighting alone . while the rest of the world is watching, especially Russia," he said.
"Russia's interests lie with the people, not the regime. We hope that Russia will side with the Syrian people. Otherwise, should it choose to continue supporting the regime, there will be no place for it in Syria in the future."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae