The Lionesses of Syria: Assad recruits army of women as he starts to run out of men
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | January 23, 2013 21:45
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has recruited an army of women to guard checkpoints and carry out security checks in an attempt to plug the holes left by defections and casualties in his dwindling army.
Up to 500 women have been drafted into the new paramilitary force known as the ‘Lionesses for National Defence.’
They form part of the recently formed 10,000-strong National Defence Force (NDF), a key part of Assad’s counter insurgency strategy, as the president desperately tries to regain control of the country’s towns and cities.
It comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that there could be no peaceful resolution of the conflict in Syria as long as opponents of President Bashar al-Assad demand his exit from power and refuse to negotiate with his government.
Lavrov’s comments at an annual news conference signalled no shift in the position of Russia, which says Assad’s exit must not be a precondition for a deal to end 22 months of violence in which more than 60,000 people have been killed.
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