Defectors from the Syrian army controlled by Bashar al Assad’s regime say government troops are nothing more than front for Iranian and Lebanese regular troops and groups who now are in control, The Washington Times reported.
Khaled al-Shami, a recent defector from the Syrian army says: “One important thing to realize is that there is no Syrian army anymore, it is just militias, mostly Iranians and Lebanese.”
“The Iranians and Hezbollah are not under the control of the Syrian army, it’s the exact opposite,” he said.
“Ten high-ranking Iranian officers control the [ninth armored] division, they plan the operations. Only Iranian or Hezbollah forces can access operations rooms, no Syrian soldiers are allowed in … (in every battle) the commander is an Iranian IRGC (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps), his deputy will be a Hezbollah officer.”
“Even the civilian Lebanese militia have the power to tell a Syrian general what to do, to send him back to his office,” said a soldier, who asked to remain anonymous.
Shami defected from Assad’s troops to join the Syrian opposition in July. He was a soldier in the ninth armored division and served in southern Syria, where President Assad’s forces are battling a coalition of rebel groups. Free Syrian Army fighters now say that all of the troops they face in Syria’s civil war are now foreigners, Iranian, Lebanese or Russian.