SYRIA: A commander in the Free Syrian Army who joined the rebels defecting from the regular army says the rebels are in need of weapons to defeat President Bashar al Assad army

Record ID: 280384

  • Title: SYRIA: A commander in the Free Syrian Army who joined the rebels defecting from the regular army says the rebels are in need of weapons to defeat President Bashar al Assad army
  • Date: 4th March 2012
  • Summary: CLOSE OF HANDS RIFLE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) FREE SYRIAN ARMY COMMANDER, EBRA, SAYING: "I joined the free Syrian army in Al Qusair to protect and defend the civilians and to protect the protests because Assad's army is being very brutal, they used rockets and artillery, because the regime noticed that they were coming to their end." CLOSE OF MASKED FACE (SOUNDBITE) (Ara
  • Embargoed: 19th March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflict,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA168KPR64FKAYL5PCVBGTX50V4
  • Story Text: A commander in the Free Syrian Army said on Friday (March 2) that the rebels are in need of weapons to defeat Syrian President Bashar al Assad army.
    The former regular Syrian army captain, who gave the nickname of 'Ebra', told Reuters Television in the town of Qusair, 20 km southwest of Homs, the rebels were poorly armed and had little ammunition, not enough to confront the regular army.
    "The Free Syrian army have only individual and light arms, and these weapons just to defend the town and ourselves and not for a long time, some rifles, automatic machine guns and little ammunition. What can a rifle do against artillery and rockets? It can do nothing. And these are the Free Syrian Army weapons," Ebra said.
    "There are many sources to get the weapons, the first is from the defections in the army, and there are some troops that are defecting with their weapons and ammunitions. The second source is when some of Assad's gangs raid civilians houses and damage them, the Free Syrian Army ambush their main checkpoints and we confiscate their weapons. The third source is some of the corrupted officers, because generally the Syrian regime officers are all corrupted."
    The Free Syrian Army, the main opposition armed group in Syria, so far composed of rag-tag groups fighting in different parts of Syria with little ability to coordinate. Saudi Arabia and some other countries have backed the arming of Syria's opposition guerrilla army.
    Ebra joined the FSA two months ago during the anti-Assad protests in Qusair.
    "I joined the free Syrian army in Al Qusair to protect and defend the civilians and to protect the protests because Assad's army is being very brutal, they used rockets and artillery, because the regime noticed that they were coming to their end."
    Ebra said that FSA's main priority is to protect the protesters but they have also other groups to secure roads and to get supplies for the besieged towns, but he insist that the rebel need more arms.
    "The Free Syrian Army is more in need of weapons support, our weapons are light, and there is little support, if we have more support of weapons other than those we buy from the corrupted Syrian army officers and from defected officers, we can't even protect ourselves and the civilians with these weapons."
    "We in the Free Syrian Army in our area are under one command, and one commander, who was the first who defected and formed the fighting groups, and those groups are divided with each having their own task, one for protecting the protests, one for protecting the neighborhoods, one for lookout, one for taking care of the injured, one for protecting the roads, there are some of the roads used to transfer injured people and it's very dangerous, and if we need food or medical supplies there are groups for that too," Ebra explained.
    Asked about the participation of all Syrian sects in the revolution, he said:
    "All the people from every religion know that the revolution is right and the revolution is going to give them dignity and freedom after its victory and they are supporting it indirectly. But as minorities other than the majority Sunnis, their situation doesn't allow them to be an effective participant in this revolution."
    Syrian forces bombarded parts of the shattered city of Homs anew on Saturday (March 3) and blocked the first Red Cross aid meant for civilians stranded for weeks without food and fuel in the former rebel stronghold, activists and aid workers said.
    The renewed government assault came a day after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had received "grisly reports" that President Bashar al-Assad's troops were executing, imprisoning and torturing people in Syria's third largest city.
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