Maj. Gen. Haddad: No Split in the Syrian Army

(DP-News – Arab News)

SYRIA- Army units that had surrounded Maaret Al-Numan were poised to enter the town as a senior military official claimed that “gunmen” inside were “intimidating people into fleeing the area.” Maj. Gen. Riad Haddad, head of the military’s political department, said the government feared a repeat of the violence in nearby Jisr Al-Shughour, where authorities say gunmen killed 120 officers and security personnel last week, prompting troops to storm the town in Idlib province.

Haddad said the army had not entered Maaret Al-Numan “yet,” implying they were bracing for a military operation there.

Haddad said “special units” were involved in the military operations in the north but denied widespread witness accounts that elite Syrian troops led by President Bashar Assad’s brother, Maher, had been involved.

“The Fourth Division has not been entrusted with any mission until now,” he said, adding the president’s brother was not the commander of the division but of a unit within the division.

Haddad said armed forces were “coherent and carry out all tasks entrusted to them.” “There is no split in the Syrian army. It is coherent and has the mandates to end these painful events Syria is passing through,” he said.

Haddad said 3,000 displaced people from Jisr Al-Shughour have returned to their towns and villages on Tuesday, hours after the Syrian government’s appeal on all those who have fled to Turkey to return.

Activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have died and some 10,000 have been detained in the government crackdown since the popular uprising began in mid-March, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

Activists said hundreds of residents continued to flee Maaret Al-Numan Wednesday to escape the tank forces on the outskirts. They said the town had come under intermittent shelling in the past days.

The government blames a foreign conspiracy for the violence, which it says is perpetrated by religious extremists and terrorists seeking to destabilize the country.
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