BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian activist group says four senior army officers have defected and joined the opposition.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights provided a video Friday purporting to show two brigadier generals and two colonels. They declared they were defecting.
The group said the defections came Thursday — the same day a Syria fighter pilot flew his MiG-21 warplane to neighboring Jordan, where he was given asylum.
Thousands of soldiers have abandoned the regime, but most are low-level conscripts. The Free Syria Army, the loosely linked group of rebel forces, is made up partly of Syrian army defectors.
Also Friday, Syria’s state-run news agency said “terrorist groups” killed and mutilated several people in the northern Aleppo province.
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The Syrian government refers to rebels as terrorists.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
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