Reuters reports:
The head of Syria’s military police has defected from the army and declared allegiance to the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to a video and a Syrian security source.
The high-level defection, while not a strategically significant development in the 21-month-old conflict, will be a blow to morale for Assad’s forces, which are hitting back at a string of rebel advances across the country.
“I am General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, head of the military police. I have defected because of the deviation of the army from its primary duty of protecting the country and its transformation into gangs of killing and destruction,” the officer said in a video published on YouTube.
A Syrian security source confirmed the defection but played down its significance.
