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Source: http://www.economist.com/node/21559670
Assad Is Losing His Grip
(Economist-UK) Louay Mokdad, a senior logistics man for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), says the FSA's improved skills are thanks to the rising number of defections from Assad's forces. "Some 50 officers are joining us every day and we ask many who contact us to stay put and pass on information," he says. The rise in military defections is being matched by an exodus of big businessmen. "After the assault on Damascus, we see that nowhere and no one is safe," said a senior executive who has just shut up shop and made for Beirut, in neighboring Lebanon. The regime, twitchier about the loyalty of those it had previously banked on, has arrested several of its own, including a son of the Joud family, a clan in Assad's Alawite sect that runs a web of businesses.