HATAY (AA) – August 1, 2012 – Ahmed Kassem, an ex-Syrian army lieutenant colonel, has said about Syria crisis, "When regime struggles, they will use chemical weapons."
Kassem who came to Turkey a month ago after quitting from the Syrian army, shared the latest developments in his country with AA on Wednesday.
Kassem said that the unit he was working with started firing on its own city upon the command of the general and the army was using planes and tanks to fire.
Kassem said that as they are opponents, they have been growing every other day bigger and said, "Morally we are more superior than the Syrian army. Syrian army has been stepping back, they are having a bad time morally."
Kassem underlined, "When the regime struggles, they will use chemical weapons and people are scared of it. We think that he (Assad) is going to use them soon. As a soldier, I know that there are stored chemical weapons in the military command centre."
He continued touching on the war of religions which is being carried out by Al-Assad's regime and some other external forces and said, "Al-Assad tried to start the war of religions, he wants the "Sunni-Alewi" conflicts. Both Syrian government and other external forces want it however, we never wanted such a thing. Neither Sunnis nor Alewis want conflicts between them. Our war is not about the race or religion. It is about the dictatorship, its regime and cruelty. All we want is democracy, we would like to have our freedom then just be happy."
Raif Omar who was working as a police officer in the Qamishli district, he joined the opponents and told AA that supporters of Al-Assad allied with both the community and the PKK to withdraw the police. Omar stated that Syrian flags were replaced with the PKK and Kurdish flags at Qamishli police stations and Al-Assad's photos were placed under the flags, followed by change of the names of towns into Kurdish names.
Reporting by Erdal Turkolu
