Back in June I wrote about the capture of Major General and Brigadier General in Damascus, Brigadier General Mounir Shleibi of the notorious Palestine Intelligence Branch, and Major General Faraj al-Maqt of Syrian Central Command. In an interesting twist a new video has been posted online in the last few days showing Major General Faraj al-Maqt declaring his defection to the Free Syrian Army
In the video he states his name, that he was arrested on June 20th, and that he is defecting after witnessing first hand the murder of children and innocent civilians by artillery, mortar, and aircraft for the 17 days he was detained with the Free Syrian Army. He then goes onto say he's received nothing but the utmost humane, moral, and ethical treatment, and urges members of the Syrian Army, in particular the Druze, to defect and join the FSA under the Sultan Basha al-Atrash Battalion, which appears to have been founded in December last year according to this video in Houran.
At the end of his video his military ID is displayed
Which appears to match the ID shown in the earlier video
Reliable activist THE_47th claimed this about the apparent defection
This video has been recently posted online showing a Syrian Army major general and intelligence service brigadier general captured by the Free Syrian Army Update 29th JuneEnglish subtitled version here
The makers of the video have gone to great lengths to ensure both men can be clearly identified, filming close up of their ID documents. On the left is Brigadier General Mounir Shleibi of the notorious Palestine Intelligence Branch
His IDs are shown below
The second man is Major General Faraj al-Maqt of Syrian Central Command
His ID documents are shown below
Both are significant individuals, and the brigadier says they were captured at the Adawi highway in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus. (thanks to @Dsyrer for the translation). This map shows the area they were captured from in relation to the rest of Damascus, with Harasta at the top of the map
It seems significant that senior military figures can be captured in Damascus by the FSA seemingly under the nose of the Assad government, and will no doubt raise serious concerns among senior officers about their own safety.
Update June 29th This video posted in March 2011 claims to show Brigadier General Mounir Shleibi at around 1:13 at the site of the Sednaya prison massacre in 2008 where up to 25 prisoners were killed during a prison riot (thanks to HamaEcho)
Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher is also visible in the video around 1:03 to 1:12. Update June 29th Syrian Uprising Info has claimed that the above video may not in fact be filmed at Sednaya, but another massacre.
Update June 29th As the Guardian Live Blog notes Syrian State media made a brief report on the capture of Faraj Shihadeh al-Maqt, referring to him as lieutenant general, not major general as in the above video
An armed terrorist group intercepted the car of pilot Lt. Gen. Faraj Shihadeh al-Maqt in al-Adawi area and abducted him. The authorities are working to locate and free him.
Update June 29th I've been talking to various individuals about the Palestine Intelligence Branch, including HamaEcho and troublejee, who have provided more information about them. To begin with the Palestine branch is one of 15 military intelligence branches under one of 4 intelligence divisions, as listed here. Their name comes from what was meant to be their original function, countering Israeli covert operations, but they've actually been more focused on cracking down on Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood dissidents, as well as being involved with extraordinary rendition, which has involved working with a number of countries post-9/11, including Germany and the US, and they've been involved with the rendition of Mohammed Haydar Zammar and Maher Arar.
