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Syrian intelligence infiltrates rebels’ ranks

REGIME SPIES: The Free Syrian Army has released a video […]


5 December 2013

REGIME SPIES: The Free Syrian Army has released a video clip of an arrested woman confessing that she had been spreading electronic tracking devices in the blockaded al-Waar district of Homs, allowing Syrian government forces to pinpoint locations to bomb. The tracking devices contributed to the deaths and injuries of a number of civilians says the woman, Sana Mathar al-Qasimi in the clip which was released Tuesday. She also admitted to dealing with State Security Branch 313 in Homs and two other branches in Damascus.

Accusations of spies in rebel ranks are not new, but in recent months on the rise. After rebel groups lost the town of Qara on the strategic Damascus–Homs highway in Qalamoun last month, an opposition spokesperson pointed to the prevalence of regime intelligence agents within rebel forces. “There is a great deal of betrayal taking place within the FSA, or within rebel brigades,” Amer, the director of the Qalamoun Media Center, told Syria Direct.

In the video, al-Qasimi says she planned prominent Homs religious scholar “Sheikh Sahil Junaid’s poisoning with arsenic” after being delivered toxic materials from parliamentarian Wael Melhem.

Al-Qasimi said she had placed electronic tracking devices in many now-destroyed locations “meant to be as crowded with and kill as many people as possible.” She added that she gave state security Junaid’s location at a weapons storage unit in a Homs farm, but the leader evaded arrest by escaping in time.

Al-Qasimi admitted that the regime had prevented rebels from exiting or entering the Old City of Homs, preventing the arrival of food in to neighborhoods that have been besieged for 540 or more days. After citizens used the tunnels of the Orontes River, which flows through Homs, security branches electrified the water, she said.

– December 5, 2013

Video courtesy of Free Syrian Army Website.

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