Civilians call on soldiers to defect from army

Thousands of Syrian protesters called on soldiers to abandon president Bashar al-Assad’s regime and join a dissident army yesterday.

The calls came as the top UN human rights official warned of a “full-blown civil war” in Syria, saying the death toll in the seven-month-old crackdown has passed 3,000.

Security forces opened fire at protesters, killing at least 11, including a 14-year-old boy, in what has become a weekly ritual activists said.

Yesterday’s protests, dubbed “Free soldiers,” were in honour of army officers and soldiers who have sided with the protesters and are reportedly clashing with loyalists in northern and central cities in an increasing militarisation of the uprising.

“The army and people are one!” protesters shouted in the southern village of Dael. In other locations, some protesters held up banners that read: “Free soldiers do not kill free people asking for freedom.”

The demonstrations were the most explicit show of support so far by the country’s protest movement for the defecters.

Faced with gunfire, bullets, mass arrests and a lack of international military intervention, many Syrians now feel the armed dissidents are their only hope of toppling the regime.

The Free Syrian Army, as the dissidents are known, are led by an air force colonel who recently fled to Turkey. The group is said to include more than 10,000 members and is gaining momentum as the first armed challenge to Mr Assad’s authoritarian regime after seven months of largely nonviolent resistance.

Clashes between troops and gunmen believed to be defectors left at least 25 people dead on Thursday, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.