Report: 33 Syrian soldiers, officers defect to Turkey

[dayag]

The rats are starting to flee the ship.

Turkey's state-run news agency says 33 more members of the Syrian military have defected to Turkey with their families at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over Syria's downing of a Turkish plane.

The Anadolu Agency said Monday that the group, which includes a general and two colonels, crossed into Turkey overnight. They were being hosted at a refugee camp near the border...

source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...urkey-1.443807

[dayag]

Turkey is moving tanks and troops up to the border and changing the rules of engagement.

Turkey will treat any Syrian military units which approach its border as a threat and a military target, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Erdogan also said Turkey was totally in the right over Syria's shooting down of a Turkish plane and that Ankara's rational response to the incident should not be mistaken for weakness.

"Everybody should know that Turkey's wrath is just as strong and devastating," Erdogan said in a speech to his ruling AK Party deputies in parliament.

The army's rules of engagement along the two countries' border had now changed, he said.

"Every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border and representing a security risk and danger will be assessed as a military threat and will be treated as a military target," he said...

source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...hreat-1.444116

[Cellis]

Weekend hit was phantom down. Very surprising nobody mentioned it

[sharonbn]

like Churchill said - this is the end of the beginning.
Assad will probably go down in flames like Qaddafi, and it will cost the lives of many more Syrians.
but it will happen.

The question that rises now is who will replace Assad?
experience in other countries suggest it will likely be an Islamist body.
not good news for us, Israelis

[NewsGuy]

Weekend hit was phantom down. Very surprising nobody mentioned it

Today it's been reported that the Syrian troops who shot down the Turkish plane had hands-on help from Russian military advisors stationed in Syria. Some think that it's possible that the Russians themselves actually pulled the trigger. Others say the Russians got everything ready and then stood there are the Turkish plane was shot down.

[dayag]

Turkey rattling its saber.

Turkey's armed forces command said on Sunday it had scrambled a total of six F-16 fighter jets in three separate incidents responding to Syrian military helicopters approaching the border on Saturday, but there was no violation of Turkish airspace.

It said in a statement four of the jets had scrambled from Incirlik air base in southern Turkey in response to Syrian helicopters flying south of the Turkish province of Hatay, and two more F-16s took off from a base in Batman after Syrian helicopters were spotted close to the border south of the Turkish province of Mardin.

The military did not report that any direct confrontation had taken place. The jets were scrambled days after Turkey said it would treat any Syrian military unit approaching its border as a direct threat in response to the downing of a Turkish reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces on June 22.

Turkey has also reinforced its border with anti-aircraft guns and other weapons. The military said the helicopters flew as close as 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) to the Turkish border.

source:http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...order-1.448097

[dayag]

Here's an interesting twist on that Turkish fighter jet that Syria shot down:

Russian technicians were involved in the taking down of the Turkish fighter jet by the Syrian military last week the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

Sourcing Middle Eastern diplomatic sources the Times reported that the decision to down the Turkish jet was intended to signal a warning to NATO to stay out of the conflict raging in Syria for over a year.

Russia supplied Syria with advanced anti-aircraft missile systems three years ago. It is believed that Russian specialists trained the Syrian forces to use them. According to diplomats that spoke with the Sunday Times some Russian specialists are still stationed at the missile battery control centers.

“We would not be surprised if these Russian experts, if they didn’t push the button, at least were beside the Syrian officers who did it,” an Israeli air force source told the British paper.

source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...s-say-1.447981

[dayag]

Another group of soldiers defected from Syria today.

Eighty-five Syrian soldiers, including a number of senior officers, have defected to Turkey and are seeking political asylum there, Turkish Anatolia news agency reported Monday evening.

The soldiers were accompanied by nearly 300 relatives, the report said, adding that 14 Syrian generals have crossed the border into Turkey since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began.

The report said it was one of the largest groups of Syrian army defectors to cross into Turkey at one time since the unrest began in Syria. Turkey is now home to more than 35,000 Syrian refugees...

source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...250399,00.html

[Cellis]

Today it's been reported that the Syrian troops who shot down the Turkish plane had hands-on help from Russian military advisors stationed in Syria. Some think that it's possible that the Russians themselves actually pulled the trigger. Others say the Russians got everything ready and then stood there are the Turkish plane was shot down.

That's correct. But in an event of military confrontation ruskies will bail out.

[dayag]

update:

ANTAKYA, Turkey - A general in the elite Syrian Republican Guards has defected to Turkey, a news website said on Thursday, in the first such reported loss of a high-ranking military supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad since the rebellion against him started 16 months ago.

"A high-level security source has confirmed the fleeing of General (Manaf) Tlas to Turkey," the Syriasteps website, which has links to the Syrian security apparatus, said.

source: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=276434

[dayag]

important update:

A former senior Syria Army officer estimates in a report that the Syrian Army has lost 6% of its armored vehicles in the ongoing civil war.

The former staff officer, Hosni Kurdi, 61, retired from military service in 1994 and has since served as a political consultant in the Gulf states. He has issued a detailed report that relies on information from sources within the Syrian military as well as western research.

The report estimates that about 600 Syrian tanks and APCs have been destroyed by rebels since the fighting began. This is about 6% of Syria's armored vehicles, which include about 5,775 tanks -- including ones that are in storage or unserviceable – and about 5,000 vehicles that are not tanks.

While the Syrian army says about 4,000 of its men have been killed in the fighting, Kurdi's report says the true numbers are 8,763 killed and 21,357 wounded, as of early July. It adds that about 18,000 defectors from the military have joined rebel forces, and not 30,000 as rebels have claimed.

The fact that rebels have been armed with advanced anti-tank weapons, while the Syrian army is using the T-62 tank as its main weapon against the rebels, means that the entire T-62 tank array will be wiped out or put out of use in a few months' time, the report determines. The Syrian military is also suffering from a severe shortage in tank crews, it says.

source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...0#.T_YkyJB0gfw

[Reffo]

The question that rises now is who will replace Assad?
experience in other countries suggest it will likely be an Islamist body.
not good news for us, Israelis

Not good for Israelis? That's a given. But Assad is not good for Israelis either.

The more pertinent question is: What's worse for Israelis? Assad? Or those who will follow him?

The way I see it is the way Rabin saw the "peace process" and terrorism. What was it he said? Fight terrorism as if there is no peace process and make peace as if there is no terrorism, or something like it. I say, fight Assad as if there are no other haters of Israel in Syria and fight the other haters of Israel in Syria as if there is no Assad.

[dayag]

Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab has defected to the opposition seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad, a spokesman for Hijab said on Monday, marking one of the most high profile desertions from the Damascus government.

Syrian state TV said Hijab had been fired, but an official source in Amman said the dismissal followed his defection to neighboring Jordan with his family.

"I announce today my defection from the killing and terrorist regime and I announce that I have joined the ranks of the freedom and dignity revolution. I announce that I am from today a soldier in this blessed revolution," Hijab said in a statement read in his name by the spokesman, which was broadcast on Al Jazeera television.

source: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=280231