A crumbling regime

The embattled regime in Syria has suffered yet another blow. Syria’s military police chief Major General Abdul Aziz Jassim Al Shallal has joined the rebellion and fled the country to neighbouring Turkey.

In a video posted online, the former military man announced his defection to the “people’s revolution” and denounced the Syrian regime as “gangs of murder”. According to the Free Syrian Army — the most prominent rebel group in Syria — Shallal had been planning his escape to Turkey with the aid of the rebels since weeks. This latest defection follows a number of other high-profile abandonments — in July, Brigadier General and former friend of Assad Manaf Tlass quit Syria’s Republican Guard. Moreover, Prime Minister Riyad Hijab also recently left the beleaguered regime.

" The former military police chief also said in his video that other military personnel are eager to abandon the regime, but “unfavourable circumstances” thwart them from doing so "

What are the implications of Shallal’s defection? The fact that the former military police chief called it quits at such an advanced stage of civil war, which has so far claimed over 40,000 people, surely makes him no revolutionary dissident. It makes more sense to assume that Shallal was actually an Assad loyalist, who saw the writing on the wall as the Ba’athist regime teeters on collapse and decided to save himself. His decision to switch sides is a clear sign that Assad’s grip over his territory is progressively weakening — a fact that even Syria’s staunchest ally Russia recently acknowledged.

The former military police chief also said in his video that other military personnel are eager to abandon the regime, but “unfavourable circumstances” thwart them from doing so. This statement suggests that as rebels continue to debilitate Assad’s regime, more defections will be in line. The Syrian National Council should brace itself for handling a transition, because Assad’s days surely seem numbered.
Khaleej Times