Syria army deserters freed from underground cells

Nassar spent 10 weeks in an underground jail at Hanano military barracks in the embattled province of Aleppo in northern Syria for planning to desert before his fortunes changed.

He only saw the light of day again earlier this month when rebel forces took the base.

The 27-year-old defector tells calmly of the two-and-a-half months he spent in detention, suffering daily torture, surrounded by filth and beaten down by the heat in the prison where he was treated "like an animal."

"We were 14 in my cell. Some fell ill with the worst sores we had ever seen," he says.

"Some died under torture, others came back from the cells with whip marks all over their bodies. The torture sessions started about 11 at night and finished at 4 in the morning," the young man says, sporting a neatly groomed red beard.

Nassar talks to AFP on condition of not revealing his family name. He fears reprisals against his family in Damascus, which he cannot return to because of the military checkpoints across the war-torn country.

Talal, a 21-year-old also from the capital, was arrested trying to escape his barracks. He was transferred by helicopter from the nearest military airport to Hanano, where he spent 17 days.

He had been thinking of deserting for some time, but an army operation he was part of in Aleppo firmly made up his mind.

"The army torched houses and razed an entire village. At that point, I said to myself, I can't stay here another day. We talked about it with other soldiers, deciding that if we stayed, we were complicit with the regime," Talal says.

"We weren't allowed to watch TV, to use a mobile phone. For a whole year I couldn't get permission to go and see my family. It's even forbidden to have views" other than those of the regime, the young man in a blue and white sweatshirt says.

Issa did not buy the regime's charge that "terrorists" were behind the uprising. The young soldier left the army when what his superiors were telling him did not match up with what he saw on the ground.

"They talked about terrorists but we could only see children facing us. At the start of the revolution they sent us to attack demonstrators," he says.

Issa, a native of Deir Ezzor in the east of the country, has not been able to speak to his family since he was freed after five months of detention. He agrees to be interviewed in the hope they will find out he is still alive.

The three young men were freed on September 7, when rebels attacked the Hanano base, which was of a key victory for its weapons stash. The rebels claimed to have freed 350 prisoners from the barracks in eastern Aleppo.

The prisoners were kept for two weeks by the opposition forces for questioning. Those wishing to defect were sent to various rebel positions in the region, while common law prisoners remain in detention.