Syrian army: 'Highly cohesive & overstretched'

(Reuters) - "The Syrian army, a vital pillar of President Bashar al-Assad's power, is showing little sign of the serious splits and defections ... But Assad must wonder whether is most loyal and heavily-armed soldiers are sufficiently numerous to deploy in several places at once if the need arose...
"We are seeing some defections but nothing near the critical mass that might indicate the beginnings of a serious mutiny by Sunni soldiers," said Andrew Terrill, Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College.... Firas Abi Ali, an analyst at British-based Exclusive Analysis forecasting company, said he rated the cohesion of the Syrian military as "quite high" in terms of possible splits that could trigger a coup d'etat, but sheer numbers were a problem."If they don't have enough loyal units to take Hama, they don't have enough loyal units to take on much bigger cities like Homs, Aleppo or Damascus," he said..."