Lebanese Army Says Report Claiming 2 Recruits Joined FSA 'Exaggerated'
Two Lebanese army recruits have escaped the military service and joined the ranks of the rebel Free Syrian Army to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.
An informed source told the daily that the military service of the two recruits, who hail from the Wadi Khaled border region of Akkar, was extended but after they were granted their leave of absence “they left and never came back.”
The army inquired the families of the two recruits about their whereabouts and after a few days the officer whom they worked with received a text message from the cell phone of one of them, saying: “We salute you from the Syrian town of Qusayr… My colleague and I have joined the Free Syrian Army in its fight against the Syrian regime.”
According to the source, the two men fled on April 1 and the Syrian authorities were informed about the incident immediately in order to take the necessary measures to detain them and hand them over to the competent Lebanese authorities.
Later on Wednesday, the Army Command’s Orientation Directorate issued a statement clarifying that the two “irregular” recruits were “permanent residents of Syria.”
“They have been absent from their barracks for a while now and their fate has not been determined to date,” the statement said.
The Army Command called on media outlets “not to exaggerate when publishing any information related to the military institution,” stressing that “such individual and limited cases, which happen every now and then, are being addressed in a strict manner.”
“Perpetrators are being instantly held accountable according to military regulations and applicable laws,” it added.
Al-Akhbar newspaper also reported on Tuesday that the army has exposed soldiers who breached its security by stealing arms from its warehouses and selling them to weapons dealers who in their turn smuggled the equipment to the Free Syrian Army.
The report said that over 90 machine guns were missing from the eighth battalion and a large quantity of ammunition. However, sources told As Safir that the missing machine guns don’t exceed 20.
But the Army Command noted that the disappearance of the weapons and military equipment happened “long time ago.”
“Military police investigated the incident back then, reaching decisive results concerning the location and the individuals in question,” the Army Command added, noting that “probe results were submitted to the relevant military judicial authorities, while the severest disciplinary measures were taken against the culprits.”
In March, the army also discovered an al-Qaida- takfiri network headed by Abu Mohammed Toufic Taha, which planned attacks on its bases.
Taha is reportedly based in Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp.
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