On the night of 6 December, Mohammed el-Nadaf, a soldier in the Syrian army, was at his position in Homs.
As rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) pushed into the city, days after they had seized control of Aleppo and Hama in a lightning offensive, Mohammed decided he didn’t want to fight.
“We had no orders, no information. I took off my uniform, left my weapons, and started to make my way to my village in Tartous,” he said.
At around the same time, Mohammed Ramadan was at a position on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.
“There was no one to give orders to us. Many of our commanders fled before us. So I thought, why should I die and fight for someone who didn’t even give me enough of a salary to be able to feed my family?
“For our daily rations as soldiers we got just one egg and one potato.”
The next morning, he also left his position and went home.
The testimony of the soldiers provides an insight into the rapid collapse of ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
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