Syrian army defectors target Assad's military convoys

Syrian army defectors are targeting military convoys sent to reinforce President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on popular unrest, a senior rebel said, increasingly taking the fight to Assad's forces in response to what he called state brutality.

Colonel Riad al-Asaad told Reuters that fighters from the Syrian Free Army, a loose collection of military units formed from thousands of military deserters, had improved their reconnaissance ability to enable them to disrupt army movements.

In the last month, army rebels have attacked and destroyed parts of an armored convoy in the southern province of Deraa, opened fire on an intelligence center on the outskirts of Damascus, and killed six pilots at an air force base.

On Thursday they killed eight people in a three-hour battle with security forces at an intelligence center in the northern province of Idlib, an activist group said. It was the latest clash in a spreading cycle of violence which has prompted the UN human rights chief to say that Syria appears to be on the cusp of civil war. Colonel Asaad said the increased attacks were in response to Assad's military crackdown on eight months of protests which the United Nations says has killed more than 4,000 people.

"For months now regime forces have not entered a city, town or village without using heavy guns, armor and tanks against their inhabitants. We have a right to stop the troops going to violate the people," Asaad said in an interview, speaking by telephone from Turkey where he has taken refuge.

A United Nations commission said this week Syrian security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape. "Defending against such brutality, which now knows no limits, is a natural right," Asaad said.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting "terrorist organizations" that, according to Damascus, are trying to incite civil war and have killed 1,100 soldiers and police since the uprising broke out in March.