STORY: Just weeks ago, Farhan al-Khouli was manning a military outpost in Idlib, northern Syria, for Bashar al-Assad’s army.
The story of his desertion – one of many – shows how Assad’s army crumbled as the rebels advanced.
Khouli’s commanding officer called to say a rebel convoy was heading their way.
They were just three men, badly paid and demoralized, one deemed unfit by his superiors to bear arms.
They were meant to be nine but others had bribed their way out.
They should stand and fight, the officer said.
Instead Khouli put his phone on airplane mode, changed into civilian clothes, dropped his rifle and fled.
Ending up in Damascus, now taken by the rebels, where he got this job at a horse stable.
On the road he saw other groups of deserting soldiers.
“Those who were with me in the room, I no longer know anything about them. Everyone went in a different way, some went this way, others went that way. I wanted to reach the highway, because if I reached the highway, I would no longer worry. I reach Hama, I reach Homs, I have no problem. I saw all the people gathering. It was over, they fled, the whole area was gone. I said praise be to God, I am here, by God Almighty, when they said that the whole area had fallen, I started to cry with joy.”
:: November 29, 2024
Reuters spoke to a dozen sources, including Syrian military and security sources and allied militia commanders.
As Aleppo came under attack in late November, army units were not given a clear plan but were told to work it out for themselves, two Syrian security sources said.
Within two weeks, the rebels had toppled Assad’s brutal regime.
His army lacked leadership and a defense strategy, the sources said, and had lost much of its command structure – the Iranian military advisors and militia allies such as Hezbollah – who’d left as war with Israel escalated.
The army also lacked loyalty, as Khouli’s story describes.
Khouli didn’t want to sign up but says he was forced to.
He ended up at that remote post in Idlib because he’d tried to desert once and been jailed for it.
One former major told Reuters the use of forced conscripts was a “fatal mistake.”
Khouli says he had to do heavy manual labor in extreme heat and cold.
Reuters was not able to verify the details of his experiences.
He says he was paid $40 a month and went hungry.
“We used to get sugar, and we used to get ghee, and we used to get oil, but it all went away, it used to get stolen, and we wouldn’t see any of it. What we received was a pot of bulgar wheat, mostly bulgar, I mean, we used to go 4 or 5 days with only bulgar, and each person had a pinch of tomato and potato. Each person received his portion, I mean, it wasn’t enough to fill you up.”
:: North Hama, Syria
:: Released December 1, 2024
In 2020, the army had 130,000 personnel, according to the IISS think tank, depleted by the long civil war and functioning more like a militia.
A U.S. official told Reuters Washington was learning of high-level desertions and military forces changing sides in the days before Assad fell.
Corruption went up through the ranks.
Colonel Makhlouf Makhlouf served in an engineering brigade stationed in Hama but deserted before the city fell on December 5.
He said if anyone complained about corruption they were questioned at a military court, which happened to him more than once.
A serving senior military intelligence officer told Reuters anger had been building against Assad personally within the military, especially over the past year…
…including among core high-ranking supporters from his minority Alawite community.
Despite his army past, Khouli says he has no fear for the future. “I’m happy and at ease,” he says. “I’m not afraid at all.”
