By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times –
BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has surged to an “unprecedented level,” the chief of the U.N. observer mission said Wednesday, as reports surfaced of the most high-profile defection to date from the security forces of President Bashar Assad.
Gen. Robert Mood, who heads the U.N. observer team in Syria, painted a grim picture of a nation where both sides in the escalating conflict seem determined to use force and evince little appetite for compromise or dialogue.
“The violence is continuing and escalating because the parties involved have decided that their objectives are better served by using violence than by choosing a political process,” Mood told reporters in Damascus, the Syrian capital. “It is not possible to sit down and have a dialogue in the middle of this kind of violence.”
The comments from the Norwegian general are the latest indication that the situation in Syria is spiraling toward all-out civil war — with ominous sectarian undercurrents — as diplomatic efforts have failed to produce any prospect for peace.
The U.N.’s unarmed observers — whose task was to monitor a cease-fire that never took hold — have been largely confined to their compounds in recent weeks because of the danger in the field.
Meanwhile, multiple reports were circulating Wednesday that a high-ranking military commander and longtime Assad associate had left Syria and had defected to the opposition.
There was no official confirmation, but the reported defection of Manaf Tlas, a brigadier in Syria’s Republican Guard, would likely count as the most significant defection to date from the Assad government.
Tlas is the son of Mustapha Tlas, a former defense minister and longtime intimate of the late Hafez Assad, who seized power in 1970, beginning the Assad family dynasty that is now facing its sternest challenge.
Reuters news service quoted rebel sources as saying the younger Tlas had left Damascus, and it also cited confirmation from a pro-Assad security website asserting that Tlas had deserted. Several opposition groups publicly reported the defection.
The younger Tlas was said to have commanded a brigade of the Republican Guard, regarded as intensely loyal to Assad and headed by Assad’s brother, Maher. Maher Assad is widely regarded as among the key figures behind the bloody crackdown on dissent that has now morphed into a counterinsurgency battle against dozens of rebel militias.
The Tlas family’s background is significant as the conflict in Syrian veers toward a sectarian showdown. The Tlas clan is part of the nation’s Sunni Muslim majority, yet father and son held prominent roles in a security apparatus dominated by members Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The almost 16-month rebellion has risen from the ranks of nation’s Sunni masses, who have long chaffed at Alawite rule.
The Tlas family is from the town of Rastan in Homs province, the heart of the uprising. Rastan has been the scene of heavy fighting and government shelling. Most residents are believed to have fled the heavily damaged city.
Although defections from Assad’s regime have made international headlines, most independent observers downplay the effect on the ability of Assad’s forces to continue the battle. More than a dozen generals and many other officers are reported to have fled, mostly to Turkey. A colonel in the air force deserted last month by flying his MiG-21 jet to Jordan.
Unlike last year in Libya, however, there have been no reported defections in Syria of entire brigades or battalions. The opposition has repeatedly said military morale is low and near the breaking point, with soldiers facing a shortage of weapons and ammunition. But others maintain that the Alawite-dominated security core remains intact and loyal, possibly viewing the conflict as a fight for their very existence.
The defection of Tlas, if true, “could be a sign that Sunnis are beginning to break with the regime after years of being co-opted,” wrote Andrew J. Tabler and Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
With Alawites making up an estimated 12 percent of the Syrian population, successive Assad administrations have relied on some senior Sunni officers, like Tlas and his father, in some important security posts.
Assad’s forces have demonstrated again recently that, with their superior firepower and access to artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships, government forces can chase rebels from insurgent-held areas.
Most recently, a government offensive ousted rebels from the Damascus suburb of Duma, long a hotbed of opposition to Assad. The opposition reports that scores were killed and most residents fled Duma, which is now described as a largely rubble-strewn ghost town.
Meanwhile, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Thursday that it planned to release material from more than 2 million Syrian government emails that could prove embarrassing to both Syrian officials and their foes. Several publications will be publishing accounts based on the leaked emails, WikiLeaks said.
