The state-run Anadolu news agency said 33 soldiers crossed into Turkey overnight and the group — 224 people in all — included a general and two colonels.
A government official, however, said the group included three colonels and there was no general among them. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, did not know the overall number of defectors and the two accounts could not immediately be reconciled…
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Thousands of soldiers have abandoned the Syrian regime, but most are low-level conscripts. The Free Syria Army — the loosely linked group of rebel forces — is made up largely of defectors.
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