Syrian rebels power tank with Playstation

Without the advantage of a well-financed and equipped national military, Syrian rebel fighters have turned to their own ingenuity to level the playing field in the fight against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

To counter the government tanks, rebels have built and deployed the "Sham II," a homemade armored vehicle, run, unbelievably, by Playstation technology.

The rebels brag that the "Sham II," named after ancient Syria, is "100 percent made in Syria."

From the outside, the vehicle looks like a rough approximation of a battle tank, sheeted with light steel and mounted with a machine gun. The steel covers an old diesel vehicle, outfitted with flat-screen TVs attached to five cameras mounted outside.

Both the steering wheel and the gun are controlled by the same kind of game controllers found in teenager's living rooms around the world.

"This is my brother, a trained engineer, who got the idea," Mahmud Abud, of the Al-Ansar rebel brigade, told the AFP. "We got a car, left its diesel motor on the chassis and built the engine."

"Not including from the gun, the vehicle costs about $10,000," he said.

Sham II is headed to Aleppo, where some of the fiercest fighting of the almost two-year conflict.