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July 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Ironically, their current best weapon against Assad’s forces seems to be one that his own regime may have schooled them in – improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, hugely powerful home-made bombs which have been used to some effect against Syrian tanks. The expertise for these was honed by Sunni insurgents fighting American forces in Iraq, many of whom are thought to have been trained by Syria as part of its efforts to destabilise the US-led occupation.
Unlike coalition forces in Iraq, however, the Syrian army has no effective defences against such bombs. And as the bombmakers slowly improve their skills, as they inevitably do, every country lane and narrow road will effectively become a danger zone for the army, consolidating the rebel’s territorial grip.
Already, rebel commanders boast that it is they who dominate the ground now, with the Syrian army going from hunter to hunted except in major battles like that in Aleppo yesterday.
Reports are also emerging of the rebel ranks being swelled by foreign jihadists: one such group in northern Syria, some of whom reportedly spoke English with British accents, is believed to have kidnapped the British photojournalist John Cantlie and his Dutch colleague Jeroen Oerlemans, who were freed from captivity on Thursday night by Free Syrian Army fighters after a week as hostages.
While the rebel opposition is said to be uneasy about jihadist groups, they could be tempted to harness their readiness for “martyrdom”. Al Qaeda units, for example, could offer to provide units of carbombers, yet another weapon that made life very dangerous for coalition forces in Iraq.
Equally important is the question of morale. Some reports claim that up to a third of the estimated 200,000 strong Syrian army have now deserted or joined the other side, while others argue that all the key units – many of them controlled by members of President’s Assad’s own Alawite sect – still remain in place.
The number of generals and politicians to defect is as yet too small to make much difference; what is perhaps more relevant is the mood among the remaining ordinary soldiers, most of whom must harbour doubts by now. Up to 20 soldiers a day are now dying in rebel attacks, according to estimates by US officials, and just like the rebels, they too are suffering shortages of fuel, ammunition and food when they venture from base.
Many moreover, may be wondering whether the ever-increasing numbers of opponents that they are ordered to kill can really all be “terrorists”, as Syrian government propaganda keeps insisting. When it was a few crowds of demonstrators in one town or another, as it was last year, that could have been easy to believe. When it is half their fellow Syrians, as it is now, it must surely be rather harder.
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