To help bolster the ranks of an army severely depleted by four years of battling armed insurgents, Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday announced an amnesty for men at home and abroad who have dodged conscription.
The decree, announced on state television, pardons those who violated Syria's conscription law, an offense punishable by imprisonment and sometimes death. It underscores the government's difficulty in mobilizing men to help fight a protracted war in the face of a bloody insurgency.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor that tracks violence, puts the number of draft dodgers at 70,000. The decree gives one month for those inside Syria and two months for those abroad to turn themselves into authorities.