DAMASCUS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- In an unprecedented event, five Syrian military defectors who had sided with the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) dashed through a meeting of opposition parties in the capital Damascus on Wednesday, admitting that they were wrong and that holding weapons will not solve the Syrian crisis.
Three officers, two warrant officers and six civilians, who had sided with the FSA, dashed through a conference of Syrian opposition at home on Wednesday. "After we had defected our military posts and worked with the armed groups, we figured that the solution to the Syrian crisis can't be achieved by holding weapons," they told the conference.
Lieutenant-Colonel Khaled Abdul-Rahman al-Zalem, a defected officer who served as the deputy chief of the rebels' military council, told the conference that "the solution can't be achieved through holding weapons, blasts, sabotage or killing the innocent, but repenting from the wrongdoing and through political means."
For his side, Yaser al-Abed, who ran an armed insurgent group in the northern Aleppo province, addressed the conference and called on those who have carried weapons to slow down. "Work your minds and know that holding weapons is nothing but a violation to the minds and freedom alike," he said.
"Syria is our home and honour, but they wanted to burn it. The most targeted things are our religion, nation and land," al-Abed said. "I have known all that, and that is why I have decided to lay down my weapon to be a loving person who seeks the good and the humanity."
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