Interactive: Tracking Syria’s defections
When the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began in March 2011, many analysts believed the regime would remain intact, given the strict loyalty test officials and diplomats have to endure before receiving important positions in the army or government.
As the uprising progressed, military generals and soldiers began to defect from the Syrian army to form the rebel Free Syrian Army. A large number of soldiers fled to neighbouring Turkey while others remained in Syria to battle government forces.
These defecting officials represent a small minority of government representatives – most have remained loyal to the state.
Movements.org in collaboration with Al-Jazeera launched this tool which tracks the defections of senior military officials (generals and colonels), members of parliament and diplomatic officials. Owing to media restrictions placed on Al Jazeera by the Syrian government, we cannot verify all reports of defections that we receive. For this reason, we have only added names of people who announced their defection with a video. Other data comes from media reports, human rights organisations, and activist networks. Due to the nature of the Syrian state, this list is not comprehensive, given the lack of an accessible official database from the Syrian Army or foreign ministry
The tool went live today on Al-Jazeera and is interactive, where visitors can click on any node to find out information about individuals.
To view the tracking tool, click here.
