Bashar al-Assad's military machine is on the brink of logistical meltdown and collapse, because it lacks petrol and food, and is having problems resupplying its soldiers, according to a Syrian general who has defected to the opposition.
Much has been made of the Syrian military's supposed superiority over the opposition, but General Mohammad Al-Zobi told the Guardian: "The benzine is nearly finished. They are running out of rockets. There is scarcely any bread or water for the soldiers."
Zobi defected two months ago alongside his air force colleague General Saed Shawamra. They slipped out from Tiftanaz airbase in the middle of the night. From the city of Idlib they crept across the border to Turkey. On Wednesday they crossed back into Syria, their mission now to finish off the revolution against Assad.
The men, from Dera'a province, are among around 100 senior military commanders who have joined Syria's rebels, appalled – they say – by Assad's brutal war against his own population. According to Zobi, the embattled Syrian regime can last "one or two months at most". "After that Assad will leave Syria. He'll go to Russia or maybe Iran," Zobi predicted, sitting in a village in rustic northern Syria, close to the Turkish border. » | Luke Harding in Aleppo province | Friday, July 27, 2012
