Free Syrian Army

Free Syrian Army
Participant in the Syrian Civil War
Logo of the Free Syrian Army
Active	July 2011–late 2012 (central organisation) Late 2012–present (gradual reduction of central organisation, arbitrary use of the FSA label)

External video

Idlib, Syria, 21 February 2012, About 500 soldiers defect from the Syrian army's 17th Regiment and join the opposition Free Syrian Army.

The Free Syrian Army (Arabic: الجيش السوري الحر‎‎, al-Jaysh as-Sūrī al-Ḥurr, FSA) is a faction in the Syrian Civil War. It was founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces who said their goal was to bring down the Assad government and was in late 2011 considered the main Syrian military defectors group. From July 2012 onward, ill-discipline and infighting weakened the FSA, while jihadist groups became dominant within the armed opposition. Since 2014, scepticism has spread among observers concerning the FSA and its structure, pointing to an increasingly arbitrary use of the "Free Syrian Army" label by militant groups, and questioning the existence of a unified organization.

The first defections from the Syrian Army during the Syrian uprising may have occurred end of April 2011 when the army was sent into Daraa to quell ongoing protests. There were reports that some units refused to fire on protesters and had split from the army. Video footage showed civilians helping defecting soldiers who had been shot for refusing orders.

Defections, according to unverified reports, continued throughout the spring as the government used lethal force to clamp down on protesters and lay siege to protesting cities across the country, such as Baniyas, Hama, Talkalakh, and Deir ez-Zor, and there were reports of soldiers who refused to fire on civilians and were summarily executed by the army.

At the end of July 2011, with the Syrian uprising (or civil war) running since March 2011, a group of defected Syrian Army officers established the ‘Free Syrian Army’ to bring down the Assad government. On 29 July 2011, Colonel Riad al-Asaad and a group of uniformed officers announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army or 'Syrian Free Army', with the goals of protecting unarmed protesters and helping to "bring down this regime", in a video on the Internet where Riad al-Asaad spoke alongside several other defectors.