democracy movement has reached out to the army ahead of Friday protests that have become a weekly ritual, appealing to soldiers to join their cause. “We urge our supporters to deliver a message to free soldiers in the Syrian army so that hand in hand the guardians of the homeland join our peaceful revolution,” said Syrian Revolution, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests. This week's protests are being promoted under the slogan “Friday of the guardians of the homeland”, a reference to the army and a play on the words used in the first verse of Syria's national anthem. A message on Syrian Revolution 2011, another Facebook page, declared “the army, the people, one hand” alongside a picture of Yusuf al-Azmah, a national hero who stood up to the French army during the colonial era. Anti-regime protesters have used Fridays, the day of weekly Muslim prayer, to rally supporters to their cause and have used different slogans each week. This week's was clearly aimed at the army whose top commanders are fiercely loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and hail for the most part from his Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The army's feared 4th division is controlled by the president's brother Maher. According to rights groups, more than 1,000 people have been killed and 10,000 arrested in the brutal military crackdown launched by the regime against the protesters. The government insists the unrest sweeping the country is the work of “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators. It has prevented foreign journalists from travelling around the country to report on the violence.
