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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/09/a-defectors-tale-assads-reluctant-army/
A Defector's Tale: Assad's Reluctant Army
(Washington Post) Olga Khazan - About 80% of Syrian troops are conscripts from the country's Sunni Muslim minority. (Many of the officers, however, are Alawite, the same sect as Assad.) Many Sunnis support the rebels, so it's not uncommon for some Syrian soldiers to feel disdain for their own cause. The Syria Deeply news service spoke to a 20-year-old man who defected from the Syrian Army and joined the rebels earlier this week. The soldier said he and other troops were assigned minders from the shabiha, a loyalist government militia, to ensure they don't defect. "The soldiers, they're scared of the FSA (Free Syrian Army). A lot of them would like to defect, but the shabiha, they stay with us, they watch us like security so we don't go." He never wanted to shoot to kill the rebels he secretly supported. "I'd shoot into the air, shoot everything but the fighters. A lot of people do that."