Posted on 12/15/2011 2:49:17 PM PST by Pan_Yan
BEIRUT — Army defectors killed 27 government forces Thursday in apparently coordinated attacks that were among the deadliest by rebel troops since the uprising began nine months ago. The escalating unrest prompted Canada to advise thousands of its citizens in Syria to leave.
The fighting began around daybreak in the southern province of Daraa, where the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime began in March.
Syria has seen a sharp escalation in armed clashes recently, raising concerns the country of 22 million is headed toward civil war. The U.N. raised its death toll for the Syrian uprising substantially this week, saying more 5,000 people have been killed since the revolt began.
“The attacks by army defectors are becoming more coordinated and more deadly. Unfortunately, this will likely lead to a new cycle of escalation by the regime,” said Mohamad Bazzi, a Syria expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sanctions by Western powers, Turkey and the Arab League have added to the growing pressure on Assad from within Syria. U.S. State Department official Frederic Hof told Congress on Wednesday that Assad’s repression may allow him to hang on to power, but only for a short time.
Still, the regime could exploit the escalation of armed attacks by military defectors to escalate the crackdown with full force on pockets of defectors concentrated in Daraa and the northwestern province of Idlib that borders Turkey.
Defectors from the Free Syrian Army, whose leaders are based in exile in neighboring Turkey, fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a bus carrying policemen into the town of Busra al-Harir on Thursday, killing 12 officers, an activist based nearby said.
That set off clashes with an accompanying force of soldiers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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