Syria’s military police chief has defected, saying he felt that the army was no longer acting in the people’s best interest.
“I am Major General Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, chief of the military police in Syria, I declare my defection from the regime’s army,” he said Tuesday in a video aired by news channel Al Arabiya .
He cited the army’s “deviation from its fundamental mission to protect the nation, and transformation into gangs of killing and destruction,” according to the video that was also posted online.
Al-Shallal was speaking from near the Turkish border and said he had been waiting for the right circumstances to defect.
“Definitely, there are other high-ranking officers who want to defect,” but close monitoring by the government “is not suitable for them to declare defection,” he said.
