Insight: Battered By War, Syrian Army Creates Its Own Replacement -- Reuters
(Reuters) - In Syria, for scores of men called each month to join the army for deadly combat, there is a more attractive alternative: stay home, join a loyalist paramilitary group, and get a share of the loot in raids on President Bashar al-Assad's enemies.
Now into the third year of the uprising against Assad, which began with peaceful protests and became an armed rebellion, Syria's regular army has been weakened. Sectarian faultlines that are increasingly dividing the nation are now fragmenting an army whose strength was already eroded by desertions and defections to rebels.
Army officers belonging mainly to the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad himself belongs, sit uncomfortably in charge of a conscript army of men who are mostly from Syria's majority Sunni Muslims.
Officers wary of their own recruits say they can create a more reliable force out of irregular loyalist militias spread across the country.
Read more ....
My Comment: Talk about laying the groundwork for massive human rights violations and war crimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment