Three Assad soldiers flee to Turkey

By Erdal Turkoglu

HATAY, Turkey

Three Syrian regime soldiers fled the country and reached Turkey's southern frontier province of Hatay late on Tuesday, a security source said on Wednesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, the source said the troops, who described themselves as "Assad's soldiers", were later sent to Turkish security units for interrogation.

The trio said they had to fight for the regime of Bashar al-Assad before fleeing to Turkey.

Turkish security forces will interrogate the three Syrian soldiers.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.