Young Syrian men in government-controlled areas are using any means necessary, including violent protests, to avoid military conscription — even if they support the government.
More than 80,000 soldiers and other pro-regime fighters have been killed in the four-year-old conflict, out of a total of roughly 220,000 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“I’m with the regime, but I am a deserter, because military service in Syria means death,” said George, a student from Damascus. “Very few young men accept to enlist, because at our age, no one wants to die.”
Photo: AFP
As the territory that has fallen out of regime control is predominantly Sunni Muslim, the government is heavily recruiting from among the Druze, Christian, Alawite and Ismaili minorities.
Now these communities say that they have paid a heavy price to defend Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule against deadly opponents, including al-Qaeda-linked militants and the Islamic State group.
“Even if they support the army and the regime, they’re not willing to serve its flag,” said Sema Nassar, a human rights activist from the northwest province of Latakia, a heartland for the Alawite sect from which al-Assad hails.
“Everyone without exception is discontent. After four years of an ugly war, who isn’t unhappy?” Nassar said.
Faced with a “war of attrition ... the government must use considerable coercion” to replenish its ranks, said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
“The rebels speak about being able to outlast the Alawites and kill their young men. They probably can if the war goes on long enough,” Landis said.
Sunni Muslims make up about 80 percent of Syria’s population, while Alawites constitute roughly 10 percent.
Syrian men by law are required to serve a two-year military service, which can be extended for much longer.
Hit by defections and desertions, Syria’s 300,000-strong military has halved in size since 2011, according to Aram Nerguizian, a military affairs expert from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To reverse the trend and snare draft dodgers, military police have redoubled their efforts.
“They set up checkpoints at the entrances to cities and check the buses coming through them for young men,” said Omar al-Jeblawi, a rights advocate from Jeblah in Latakia.
He said security forces also stand guard at university gates to screen male students and teachers.
“They comb through neighborhoods and take all of the guys 18 and up,” Jeblawi told reporters by telephone.
According to George, deserters are also caught when they seek a government service, like getting married.
To avoid the draft, some have fled the country, while others have paid exorbitant bribes to officials.
In Damascus, “young men enroll in university just to get a waiver,” George said.
Others, including Sunnis, join local pro-government militias like the National Defense Force to avoid being stationed in distant provinces, Jeblawi said.
He said young men in Latakia had also set up guards around houses they thought may be raided by security forces.
The most significant resistance took place in Sweida, a southern bastion of Syria’s Druze minority.
In April, in the town of Salkhad, Abdallah Abu Mansur was arrested by local police for deserting the armed forces, a resident said. Relatives and friends then held a violent protest outside the police station.
It was the latest of many similar incidents in the province.
In December last year, residents of another town took a man hostage and broke into the office of local security forces and released a relative. In November, a mob attacked a military patrol after it had forcefully recruited someone.
And in the summer of last year, Druze religious leaders stopped a military patrol from arresting another young deserter.
In all these cases, the deserter being held was released — some say due to political considerations.
“The government doesn’t dare respond brutally, as it fears that the Druze will change sides and join the opposition,” the resident said.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot