Syria’s Army Was Hollowing Out Long Before Rebels’ Advance

For years, Syrian soldiers have been complaining on Facebook about their bosses. Commanders who took bribes in exchange for leave. Leaders who ordered soldiers to loot. Officers who stole their troops’ food or got drunk on the job.

After 13 years of a grueling civil war that devastated Syria, that corrosion came back to haunt the regime.

Rebels on Sunday swept into the capital, Damascus, as President Bashar al-Assad fled the country his family had ruled for decades.

Multiple factors, including preparation by the main rebel coalition and Mr. al-Assad’s sudden abandonment by his closest allies, contributed to his fall. But the internal deterioration of Mr. al-Assad’s own military meant that when he needed his troops most, many chose to strip off their uniforms and get out of the rebels’ way.

Last month, after the rebels burst out of the country’s northwest and began a lightning march south, a soldier from one embattled unit posted an anonymous plea to his commander in chief.

“The battalion leaders fled and left the troops and officers to their fate,” the soldier wrote, as documented by Gregory Waters, a Syria researcher, in a recent newsletter. The soldier said that he had lost dozens of comrades.