Syrians who fled a brutal army assault on their hometown yesterday how troops have begun fighting among themselves after slaughtering livestock and torching crops in revenge attacks.
More than 5,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey in the past week, fearing a crackdown after what the authorities said was the massacre of 120 policemen in the town of Jisr al-Shughur, some 40km from the border.
Those who have made it across the border described how the army had embarked on a scorched earth policy in Jisr al-Shughur and other villages in Idlib Province, which has long been a hotbed of hostility towards the Syrian regime.
While some troops had appeared to be bent on destruction, others tried to defend the townsfolk and battles flared among the army on Sunday when parts of a tank division defected and then set up base by bridges into the town.
“The troops are divided. Four tanks defected and they began to fire on one another,” said 35-year-old Abdullah, who fled Jisr al--Shughur on Sunday and sneaked over the border into Turkey in order to find food.
“When they started to fire on each other, I decided to flee. I don’t know if they destroyed the bridges or not ... which is where the tanks have gone,” he said. “But everyone inside those four tanks would probably have died the moment they were hit.”
Abdullah, who like many other refugees would only give his first name, said that the troops had pounded the town with heavy gunfire at the start of the operation before advancing.
“They began by surrounding the town with tanks, and then began firing from outside, spraying it with machinegun fire and using heavy weapons,” he said. “And then they entered the town, saying there were armed groups inside but in fact there was no-one. The place was empty.”
Ali, another Syrian refugee who made it to Turkey, also described evidence of a rift within the ranks.
“There is now a split within the army and you have a group who are trying to protect the civilians: they have blown up two bridges in Jisr al-Shughur,” the 27-year-old said, confirming similar testimony from other refugees who fled the town on the same day.
Meanwhile, rights campaigners reacted furiously yesterday after a US student based in Scotland unmasked himself as the author of the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blogs, which charted the security crackdown in Syria.
Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old Edinburgh University masters student, admitted on Sunday that he was “Amina Abdullah,” who had described “herself” as a Syrian political blogger.
The Abdullah character rose to fame with her reports on the pro-reform movement, posting as “an out Syrian lesbian’s thoughts on life, the universe and so on.”
Last Tuesday someone claiming to be her cousin wrote on the Web site that Abdullah had been snatched off the street by three armed men and bundled into a car bearing a pro-government window sticker. The report sparked a wave of alarm among her online followers.
MacMaster finally came clean in a posting on his blog on Sunday, after doubts began to emerge as to whether Abdullah really was for real. He admitted that he was the sole author of the posts.
“I never expected this level of attention,” MacMaster wrote in an “Apology to readers” posted on the blog. “While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground.”
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