Syrians who fled a brutal army assault on their hometown told how troops have begun fighting among themselves after slaughtering livestock and torching crops in revenge attacks.
More than 5,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey in the last week, fearing a crackdown after what the authorities said was the massacre of 120 policemen in the town of Jisr al-Shughur, some 40 kilometers from the border.
Those who have made it across the border described how the army had embarked on a scorched earth policy in Jisr al-Shughur and other villages in Idlib province, which has long been a hotbed of hostility towards the Syrian regime.
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But while some troops had appeared to be bent on destruction, others tried to defend the townsfolk and battles flared among the army on Sunday when parts of a tank division defected and then set up base by bridges into the town.
"The troops are divided. Four tanks defected and they began to fire on one another," said 35-year-old Abdullah, who fled Jisr al-Shughur on Sunday and sneaked over the border into Turkey in order to find food.
"When they started to fire on each other, I decided to flee. I don't know if they destroyed the bridges or not... which is where the tanks have gone."
"But everyone inside those four tanks would probably have died the moment they were hit," he said.
Abdullah, who like many other refugees would only give his first name, said that the troops had pounded the town with heavy gunfire at the start of the operation.
"They began by surrounding the town with tanks, and then began firing from outside, spraying it with machinegun fire and using heavy weapons," he said.
"And then they entered the town, saying there were armed groups inside but in fact there was no-one. The place was empty."
Ali, another Syrian refugee who made it to Turkey, also described evidence of a rift within the ranks.
"There is now a split within the army and you have a group who are trying to protect the civilians: they have blown up two bridges in Jisr al-Shughur," the 27-year-old told AFP, confirming similar testimony from other refugees who fled the town on the same day.
Abdullah said that while the army was still inside Jisr al-Shughur, other members of the security forces had now reached Ziayni, a town which is only around six kilometres from the border.
"The police and the Shabiha (militia) are in Ziayni at the moment. The soldiers and the tanks are not there yet ... Maybe they will just position themselves on the hills overlooking Ziayni and use long-distance weaponry," he said.
"They torched all the crops, they slaughtered the goats, the cows.
"In the town itself, all the bakeries and the supermarkets have been pillaged, there is nothing left. The doors have been smashed in", he said.
"They bombarded the prison, destroying it. They fired on the mosques, they fired at some people's homes. And municipal buildings have been wrecked like the registry office and the post office."
"It was hard to escape, I fled on foot through the mountains, through the forest, up to the Turkish border", he explained.
"The residents of Jisr al-Shughur and the surrounding villages are not being allowed to go anywhere, to any other town.
"There are checkpoints on the roads to Latakia, to Aleppo. They are stopping everyone who wants to pass and we don't know what has become of them. All because they want their freedom," this witness added.
He also explained how the Syrian soldiers steered clear of villages populated by Allawites, the religious group which can count Syrian President Bashar al-Assad among its number.
"It was only the Sunni village which were attacked. The Sunni villages have been destroyed... The people living there, the children, are now out in the open and many have fallen ill," he said.
