A breaking story from Reuters this afternoon has it that a leading Syrian military official, former Syrian Defense Minister General Ali Habib, has defected from the regime and is now in Turkey.

The defection, if confirmed, will be read along multiple dimensions.

Analysts seeking to evaluate the morale and readiness of Syria’s military are likely to link it to opposition-driven rumors describing a spike in defections from the Syrian army. More broadly, Habib would become the highest-ranking member of Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect to turn his back on the regime.

The former defense minister was reportedly dismissed from his job when he objected to the regime’s killing of protesters. A source told Reuters that Habib’s defection was coordinated with the United States, and that he would be helpful:

A Gulf source told Reuters that Habib had defected on Tuesday evening, arriving at the Turkish frontier before midnight with two or three other people. He was then taken across the border in a convoy of vehicles. His companions were fellow military officers who supported his defection, the source said. They were believed to have also left Syria but there was no immediate confirmation of that.

Labwani said Habib was smuggled out of Syria with the help of a Western country. “He will be a top source of information. Habib has had a long military career. He has been effectively under house arrest since he defied Assad and opposed killing protesters,” Labwani said.

Other Syrian generals to defect in the past twelve months include Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Jassem al-Shallal, the chief of military police, and Brig. Gen. Mohammed Nour Ezzedeen Khallouf, the  army’s chief of supplies and logistics who defected in March.

[Photo: Infolivetvenglish / YouTube]