Total deaths, for 11 months of violence, are now over 10,000. The government says that over 2,000 security personnel have died in that period.
A monthly tally would show most are recent deaths as the resistance has snowballed. It won't be long before Syria is seeing casualties that match Iraq at the height of the insurgencies and terrorism campaigns (totaling about 120,000 over nine years). Recall, too, that we never suffered more than a thousand casualties even at the height of violence. Iraqi security forces did, of course, but Syria's violence level is still pretty low level.
Also:
Desertions in the army continue with most of them just going home, or leaving the country. But over 20,000 have organized themselves into armed rebel units. So far, about twenty percent of the 300,000 army troops have deserted.
At peak, we estimated there were 25,000 insurgents in Iraq, if my memory serves me. Also, the army has to be hurting more than the desertions statistic indicates since I really doubt Assad is having a lot of luck bringing new recruits in.
Mostly I'm amazed that Syria's Sunnis and Shias are killing each other without our military presence, the way the anti-war side insisted happened in Iraq.
Yes indeed, we may learn a lot with an alternative regime change model.
