As military defections increase, sporadic clashes began to occur between the defectors and security forces. On 8 September, the Syrian Army raided the home of the brother of army defector Colonel Hussein Harmouche, one of the first defecting officers. The operation in Idlib Governorate resulted in the death of three defectors and six Syrian Army soldiers. Around this time, defectors in the governorate and elsewhere began to group together and target Syrian Army patrols. Protests still continued, but they were often dispersed with gunfire by security forces. Refusing to fire on unarmed protestors was one of the reasons some of the opposition fighters gave for defecting. [194] The first major confrontation between the FSA and the Syrian armed forces occurred in Rastan. From 27 September to 1 October, Syrian government forces, backed by tanks and helicopters, led a major offensive on the city of Rastan in Homs province, which had been under opposition control for a couple weeks.[195][196] There were reports of large numbers of defections in the city, and the Free Syrian Army reported it had destroyed 17 armoured vehicles during clashes in Rastan,[197] using RPGs and booby traps.[198] The Harmoush battalion also reported that it killed 80 loyalist soldiers in fighting.[199] A defected officer in the Syrian opposition claimed that over a hundred officers had defected as well as thousands of conscripts, although many had gone into hiding or home to their families, rather than fighting the loyalist forces.[198] The 2011 Battle of Rastan between the government forces and the Free Syrian Army was the longest and most intense action up until that time. After a week of fighting, the FSA was forced to retreat from Rastan.[196] To avoid government forces, the leader of the FSA, Col. Riad Asaad, retreated to the Turkish side of Syrian-Turkish border.[200] By the beginning of October, clashes between loyalist and defected army units were being reported fairly regularly. During the first week of the month, sustained clashes were reported in Jabal al-Zawiya in the mountainous regions of Idlib province.[201] In mid-October, other clashes in Idlib governorate include the city of Binnish and the town of Hass in Idlib governorate near the mountain range of Jabal al-Zawiya.[202][203] In late October, other clashes occurred in the northwestern town of Maarat al-Numaan in Idlib province between loyalists and defected soldiers at a roadblock on the edge of the town, and near the Turkish border, where 10 security agents and a deserter were killed in a bus ambush.[204][205][206] It was not clear if the defectors linked to these incidents were connected to the Free Syrian Army.[207] In October, the Free Syrian Army began to get involved in the Siege of Homs, leading to heavy street fighting in several neighborhoods.[208] During the early stages of the uprising, Homs was one of the most restless of all major cities. It experienced fierce crackdowns by security forces, as the protests began to evolve into an armed rebellion. Homs became what the opposition sometimes called the "Capital of the Revolution," as the newly formed FSA began to gain ground and control of several quarters of the city.
