Syrian military police chief defects

The head of Syria’s military police, Lt Gen Abulaziz al-Shalal has defected from Bashar al-Assad’s government and is reported to have fled to Turkey.

In a video released on YouTube, Lt Gen al-Shalal said that the army has turned into "gangs of murderers” and had failed to protect Syrian citizens.

"I declare my defection from the army because of its deviation from its fundamental mission to protect the nation and transformation into gangs of murder and destruction,"

"Definitely, there are other high-ranking officers who want to defect but the situation is not suitable for them to declare defection," he said.

See the general’s video message with English translation here.

Add new comment

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button