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Why I Fled Syria's Army

(Daily Beast) Babak Dehghanpisheh - Until recently, Abu Hamid, 42, served as a first lieutenant in the Syrian Army, based in Homs. Disgusted by the army crackdown, Abu Hamid, a 23-year veteran, ditched his uniform and escaped from Syria to Lebanon with his family one month ago. The regime's shock troops are the shabiha, armed plainclothes militiamen. "We know the shabiha. They come from our own neighborhoods," says Abu Hamid. In April, Abu Hamid's neighbor, a 25-year-old woman, was raped by a group of shabiha who accused her of working with the opposition. Abu Hamid was among only a handful of Sunni officers in his unit - the rest of the officers were predominantly Alawite - and he was already being scrutinized for any sympathetic leanings toward the protesters. "There was a lot of discrimination from the Alawites toward the Sunnis," he adds.
2011-08-04 00:00:00
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