By Nicholas Blanford  

BEIRUT: The offensive against the beleaguered town of Daraa in southern Syria this week has given rise to reports suggesting that dissent is emerging within the ranks of the Syrian military with separate army units apparently having traded fire with each other.
If the reports of troops refusing to open fire on protesters are correct and cracks within the Syrian Army are beginning to appear, it could have grave ramifications for the regime’s ability to survive the unprecedented protests against its four-decade rule.
Still, the army and intelligence services are the Syrian state’s principle means of enforcing its will and analysts doubt that major splits within the military are imminent.

“The composition and structure of the chain of command in the Syrian Army, with little room for operational flexibility and a tendency to see orders through as a matter of unquestioned execution, makes it difficult for a military unit to defect,” said Aram Nerguizian, a military analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He added that while individual soldiers and officers may refuse orders, “defections are not likely to be en masse in part because defecting military personnel will find it difficult to find space to regroup and assemble a structure outside the Syrian Army.”
In a possible attempt to build distance between the Syrian military and the regime, the National Initiative for Change, a newly formed umbrella group for the Syrian opposition, Tuesday called on the army to lead the country’s transition to democracy.

The army, the NIC said in a statement, is “the only institution that has the capability to lead the transition period.” It said that Gen. Ali Habib, the minister of defense, and Gen. Dawud Rajha, the chief of staff, were individuals “that Syrians can positively relate” to, enabling them to play a “pivotal role during the transition process.”
There were several versions of the reported clashes this week between the elite Fourth Armored Division, commanded by Maher Assad, the brother of President Bashar Assad, and elements of the Fifth Division which also was deployed to Daraa. According to eyewitnesses and opposition activists, soldiers from the Fifth Division attempted to protect civilians and came under fire from troops with the Fourth Armored Division.
The Fifth Division is comprised mainly of Sunni conscripts. The Fourth Division was originally known as the Defense Companies and was established in the mid-70s to serve as a praetorian guard for the regime. Its officers and soldiers are mainly drawn from the Alawite community. While the Alawites control the levers of power in the army and intelligence apparatus in Syria, the army’s ranks are composed mainly of Sunnis, some of whom will identify with the protesters in Daraa.
“We have information from various battalions that the soldiers are frustrated,” Ausama Monajed, an activist, said. “The majority of the army are ordinary people, 18, 19, 20-years-old doing their compulsory military service. They feel sympathy for the protesters.”
Monajed added that at least four tanks had been burned by army dissidents in Daraa. “Tank transport vehicles removed the burnt tanks quickly before anyone could take pictures,” he said.
In the early stages of the uprising in Daraa, a soldier from Homs was allegedly shot dead for refusing to open fire on protesters. Since then there have been numerous unverified reports of soldiers and even senior officers being shot for refusing to obey orders.

Two weeks ago, Gen. Abdo Khodr Tellawi, an Alawite posted south of Homs was killed with his two sons and a nephew. The Syrian state run SANA news agency claimed that “armed criminal gangs … killed them in cold blood.” But opposition activists say that the Syrian intelligence services executed them because they were showing signs of sympathy for the protesters.

Other officers killed in the past two weeks include two Christian colonels and another Alawite general. Alawite military and intelligence officers are generally expected to stand with the regime, fearing a bloody backlash against them should Assad fall. But the Alawite community is not a homogenous entity and there are long-standing tensions between rival clans which could see some powerful figures siding with the opposition against the Assads.
Radwan Ziadeh, the director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, said the regime blaming “armed gangs” for the spate of assassinations of officers was in line with the recommendations of a recently leaked document purportedly written by the Syrian General Intelligence department that serves as a blueprint for suppressing the uprising. The validity of the document could not be confirmed.
The document said “it is acceptable to shoot some of the security agents or army officers in order to further deceive the enemy.”
“These shootings are the second stage of the intelligence document,” Ziadeh said. “Maybe we will soon see the third stage which was the bombing of churches and mosques to stir up sectarian tensions. The regime’s message is either stability with us, or chaos.”