The sectarianization of Syria and smearing a revolution

 Leila al-Shami:

 'As the brief lull in Russian bombing comes to an end, Aleppo is entering its biggest and perhaps its last battle. For most people in the liberated east of the city, this is a battle of survival against a genocidal regime, and a battle for democracy too, because in their hard-won liberty they have built democratic councils and a free media. 

Yet to the outside world, Aleppo often looks like a battle between sects - and with good reason. A small proportion of the city's defenders are Sunni jihadis with previous links to al-Qaeda. On the Assad regime's side, up to 80 percent of its fighters are foreign Shia jihadis organised, trained and funded by Iran.

 It didn't have to be this way. The year 2011 marked a turning point in the collective consciousness of Syrian society. In a country divided by sect, ethnicity, region and class, a protest movement for freedom, dignity and social justice united people from a wide range of backgrounds. Suddenly the term "Syrian people" gained a new, practical significance and became much more than a state-directed slogan.

 Men and women took to the streets calling for the downfall of the four-decade dictatorship. As the "fear barrier" famously broke, Syrians discovered themselves, each other, and their country anew. Few, for instance, had previously heard of the small town of Kafrnabel, in the rural north. But the witty banners activists in the town produced every Friday for its demonstrations brought it to national attention.

 Revolutionaries chanted in solidarity with towns resisting the regime's brutal crackdown - "Oh Homs (or Deraa, or Hama) we are with you until death". Slogans such as "One, One, One, the Syrian People are One" called for national unity and were against sectarianism. Groups such as "Nabd" ("Pulse") were established to promote diversity and coexistence.

 Young Kurdish and Arab activists established the Kurdish-Arab Fraternity Coordination Committee, which launched campaigns such as "Khorzi, I am your brother - Arabs and Kurds are one". Well-known Alawites (from the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs) lent their support to the revolutionaries. One was the actress Fadwa Suleiman, who led protests in the Sunni-majority city of Homs.

 The first task of the counter-revolution - practicing age old tactics of divide and rule - was to destroy this developing organic unity. One of the early methods the regime employed was the unequal distribution of violence in its response to the uprising. Areas which were wealthier or had a higher proportion of minorities were treated more gently; teargas instead of bullets was used on protesters. The regime withdrew from Kurdish majority areas without a fight, handing over security installations to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

 Working class Sunni-majority towns and suburbs, on the other hand, were barrel-bombed and gassed. This helped form cleavages between Arab and Kurdish revolutionaries, and between Sunnis and religious minorities.

 The non-sectarian democracy movement was portrayed by the regime as an extremist "Salafi-Jihadist" plot from the outset, with the hope of frightening minorities into loyalty. This began with false flag operations, described in detail by Alawite writer Samar Yazbek in her wonderful book A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution. Regime thugs known as Shabiha instrumentalised sectarian hatred by carrying out violent acts in the coastal cities of Banyas, Jebleh and Latakia, spreading rumours amongst each sect that the other was responsible. Then came a spate of sectarian massacres. 

 The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 56 sectarian massacres between March 2011 and June 2015. Of these, 49 were carried out by regime forces (both local and foreign militias) and included sexual crimes, the burning of homes, and the slaughter of entire families. According to the network, no other group resorted to ethnic or sectarian massacres until June 2013. The purpose was to incite other groups to revenge - and it worked.

 The second target of these provocations was the international community. The regime couldn't win support for a crackdown on peaceful protesters, but it could win support for a "War on Terror". As the regime rounded up civil activists and protesters en-masse for indefinite detention - and often death by torture - it released 1,500 Salafi prisoners in 2011. The beneficiaries of the amnesty included Abu Muhammed al-Jolani, who went on to lead al-Qaeda's ex-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. There was also Hassan Aboud, who led Ahrar al-Sham, and Zahran Alloush, who led Jaish al-Islam until his death in an airstrike.

 For many months after the arrival of the Islamic State group on the scene, the regime in effect pursued an undeclared non-aggression pact with the group. IS is a great excuse for the continuation of violence perpetrated by the regime and its supporters. Russia claimed its intervention was directed against the terror group, but over 80 percent of its bombs have fallen nowhere near IS-controlled areas. Iran tells its people that its presence in Syria is to defend them from "Sunni-jihadism".

 Yet most Iranian-backed forces are fighting rebel groups that are defending democratically-organised communities, including the Free Syrian Army militias. The presence of Iran's Shia-jihadi militants greatly assists the Sunni-jihadi narrative.

 When the town of Daraya - close to the capital - fell to the regime in August, its residents (both civilians and fighters) were cleansed and sent to rebel-controlled Idlib far to the north. Iraqi Shia families were then moved into vacant homes. Reports have also emerged of Iran buying property and real estate in Homs and around the capital Damascus, after local inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes following heavy bombardment, massacres or starvation sieges in an attempt to change Syria's demographics.

 In a speech in July 2015, Assad declared, "Syria is not for those who hold its passport or reside in it, Syria is for those who defend it".

 In a remarkable echo of this sentiment, IS' leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said: "Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the Muslims, all Muslims." In areas controlled by IS, religious minorities have been driven out, murdered, forcibly converted, or enslaved - even those Sunni Muslims who dare to dissent from Baghdadi’s perverse definition of Islam.

 Some commentators hold that this process of ethnic-sectarian soft partition was an historical inevitability. Close attention to realities on the ground proves otherwise. In 2011, revolutionary Syrians expressed their desire for social unity, tolerance and diversity in order to achieve their dream of a free and democratic Syria. Many still do. It took the sustained violence of the forces of counter-revolution, backed by the full weight of foreign military intervention, to smash this possibility.'

"Syrians see through the west's lying propaganda"

 "Despite all the statements of concern..."

Rebels Strike Back

 'Rebels launched a major offensive near Syria’s largest city Aleppo on Friday, making significant gains against pro-Assad forces.

 Attacks began at dawn southwest of Aleppo, an area which has been fiercely contested since the spring and where Russia and the Assad regime re-imposed a siege of the city in late August.

 The rebels quickly took most of the district of Dahiyat al-Assad, which they had never held even at the height of gains this spring and summer. By evening, they had secured almost all of the 1070 Housing Complex, most of which they occupied despite the pro-Assad advances this autumn. And they had moved for the first time into part of the neighboring 3000 Housing area.

 The rebel objective may be to capture the Assad Academy, a facility for basic educational and training institution for infantry and armored corps conscripts and for advanced training for Army engineers.

 The attacks included at least six vehicle-borne bombs, one of which was remote-controlled. Photographs showed large explosions in Hamdaniyah, where the 3000 Housing area is located.

 Hundreds of rockets were also fired on regime facilities and bases, notably the Nayrab airbase southeast of Aleppo.

 Rebels were assisted by cloud cover which prevented any resumption of Russian airstrikes. The Kremlin maintained that President Vladimir Putin had ruled out immediate strikes because he “believes it is possible to extend the humanitarian pause” which Russia declared on October 18, as it faced growing political pressure over the siege and bombing of civilian areas in eastern Aleppo city.

 Rebel commanders are saying that they hope to move through the 3000 Housing Complex and military positions — possibly the Assad academy — to break the Russian-regime siege.'

SYRIA’S “VOICE OF CONSCIENCE” HAS A MESSAGE FOR THE WEST

 YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH:

 'As a university student in the late 1970s, I was a member of one of two Communist Party organizations actively opposing the regime. At that time, there was an uprising in Syria that involved students, trade unionists, lawyers, and members of other professions who were fighting against the Assad government, as well as a separate conflict between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. There were regular worker strikes in Aleppo, where I was living, and I saw with my own eyes security forces breaking down the doors of homes and businesses.

 To be arrested in Assad’s Syria, you didn’t need reasons. But in 1980, hundreds of my comrades and I were detained as part of a campaign by the government to break Syrian society.

 I was young, and the early years in jail were very difficult. We suffered harsh treatment. In later years, our conditions were not so bad and we were allowed books and dictionaries. I learned English inside prison, and for 13 years, I read maybe 100 books or more per year. In the last year of my imprisonment, I was transferred to Tadmor prison, which is one of the most vicious places on the planet — a concentration camp for torture, humiliation, hunger, and fear. I was then released in 1996.

 The experience of prison transformed me and my ideas about the world. In many ways, it was an emancipatory experience. I developed the belief that to protect our fundamental values of justice, freedom, human dignity, and equality, we had to change our concepts and theories. The Soviet Union had fallen and many changes were occurring in the world. My comrades who refused to change, those who adhered to their old methods and tools, found themselves in a position of leaving their values behind. This is one reason why many leftists today are against the Syrian revolution — because they adhere to the dead letter of their beliefs, rather than the living struggle of the people for justice.

 It came to me as a shock, actually, that most of them have sided with Bashar al-Assad. I don’t expect much out of the international left, but I thought they would understand our situation and see us as a people who were struggling against a very despotic, very corrupt, and very sectarian regime. I thought they would see us and side with us. What I found, unfortunately, is that most people on the left know absolutely nothing about Syria. They know nothing of its history, political economy, or contemporary circumstances, and they don’t see us.

 In America, the leftists are against the establishment in their own country. In a way, they thought that the U.S. establishment was siding with the Syrian revolution — something that is completely false and an utter lie — and for this reason they have stood against us. And this applies to leftists almost everywhere in the world. They are obsessed with the White House and the establishment powers of their own countries. The majority are also still obsessed with the old Cold War-era struggles against imperialism and capitalism.

 Recently, an event in Rome that displayed images of those tortured and killed by Assad was attacked by fascists. Just days before, it had also been attacked in a local communist newspaper for promoting “imperialism.” There is a growing convergence between the views of fascists and the far-left about Syria and other issues. The reason for this is that perspectives on the left are outdated. They are interested in high-politics, not grassroots struggles. They are dealing with grand ideologies and historical narratives, but they don’t see people — the Syrian people aren’t represented. They are holding on to depopulated discourses that don’t represent human struggle, life, and death.

 The Assad regime, the junta that rules Syria today, has transformed the country from a republic into a monarchy. As you are aware, Bashar al-Assad inherited the post of president from his father in 2000. I am not aware of a statement from one Western leftist protesting against this transformation of a republic into a monarchy. The state has become the private property of the regime, while the economy has been restructured according to the neoliberal agenda.

 In the genes of this regime, it is inscribed that there must be no rights for the Syrian people. We are not citizens. We cannot say “no” to our rulers. We cannot organize, we cannot own the politics of our country, let alone organize in the public space or take part in it actively. They force us to suppress ourselves. We are, under their rule, politically speaking, enslaved.

 Many on the left look at Syria and know nothing about the relationship between the Assad regime and the Western powers. The Assad regime was never a power against imperialism in the Middle East. In fact, it always sought a role for itself in the imperial game in the region. But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Assad was against imperialism. Even if that were the case, the Syrian people would still be a part of the deal! We as a people are not merely a tool for the narratives of the Western left. This is our country. We are not guests.

 Over the past several years, there has been, in effect, a “Palestinization” of the Syrian people. We are being dealt with by the regime, and the world, as a people who will be annihilated politically. Maybe they won’t kill all of us. Many of us are still living. After all, only around half a million or so have been killed so far. But politically, they are annihilating us the same way that the Palestinians are being annihilated.

 At the same time, there is a corresponding “Israelization” of the Syrian regime. The same way that Israel relies on the United States for United Nations Security Council vetoes to protect it internationally, the Syrian regime now relies on vetoes from Russia. In Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, only one side — Israel’s — has air power. The same is true in the conflict between Assad and the opposition.

 The Assad regime has become a representative of the internal First World in Syria, the Syrian whites. I think the elites in the West find Bashar al-Assad more palatable than other potential interlocutors. He wears expensive suits and has a necktie, and, ultimately, these elites prefer a fascist with a necktie to a fascist with a beard. Meanwhile, they don’t see us, the Syrian people. Those who are trying to own the politics of their own country have been rendered invisible.

 Under the umbrella of Islam we have many things. There is the religion of Muslims, which should be respected. Then there is political Islam, which includes parties and groups with which one should negotiate and find compromises — groups such as Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Then we have what I call nihilist groups like ISIS, which must be fought. But to be successful in fighting against these groups you must give a chance to politics. You cannot isolate nihilists like al Qaeda and ISIS without giving something to other parties with whom you can negotiate.

 I am a secularist and a nonbeliever, an atheist. But I don’t find it democratic to fight against ISIS while being Islamophobic, while hating Muslims and expressing suspicion toward them, and at the same time stating that you don’t want any political role at all for Islamists! This is extremism, it is an extremist position, and it is what reactionary Islamic extremism is built on. When you refuse to accept the moderate groups, practically speaking you are supporting the extremists.

 I think there is something Islamophobic about the position that the Assad régime is a bulwark of secularism in Syria. The Assad regime is not secular. It is a sectarian regime. You don’t need anything related to progress or the enlightenment to be loyal to one sect and fight against other sects. They employ sectarianism as a strategy of control, as a means to seize power forever. In their own slogans they openly say, “Assad or we burn the country,” and “forever, forever,” in reference to holding absolute power over the country.

 In secularism, there is inherently the idea of not discriminating between people on the basis of their religion or confessional community. Is this the case in Syria now? No, it is not. If you are an Alawite, your chances of getting a job or having real power in society are greater than if you are a Sunni or a member of another group.

 After the revolution began, I was in Eastern Ghouta [near Damascus]. My travels also led me to the eastern parts of Homs and Raqqa. When the Salafists came, I never once saw people celebrating. I am not saying that people were angry, but these groups didn’t have real popularity. People are against the regime, and these groups are against the regime. Their presence filled a gap.

 For 30 years, the Baath Party has made a project of crushing all political life in Syria. So when the uprising came, we had no real political organizations, only individuals here and there. Islam, in our society, is the limit of political poverty. When you don’t have any political life, people will mobilize according to the lowest stratum of an imaginary community. This deeper identity is religion. When you have political and cultural life, you can have trade unions, leftist groups, and people are able to organize along any number of identities. But when you crush politics, when there is no political life, religious identity will prosper.

 Let me give you as an example the Syrian Kurds. Over the years of Baath Party rule, they were manipulated, divided, and even denied their very existence as Kurdish people in what was called the “Syrian Arab Republic.” Despite this, Kurds were still allowed to organize politically. Not one of their political parties was exterminated. When I was in prison, many of my friends were from Kurdish political organizations. They would only ever spend a year or two in prison at a time, never 15 or 20 years.

 The Baath Party crushed all political life for Syrian Arabs, including the Muslim Brotherhood parties. When they were confronted by the Syrian revolution, they strove to crush that as well, and this has now resulted in ISIS. ISIS is not an expression of the Syrian revolution. It is an expression of the destruction of Syrian society, and of Iraqi society before it.

 The war on terror narrative that Assad has adopted is one that is based on empowering states and empowering the powerful against the weak. That narrative weakens those who are already weak, which is why he has used it to present himself to the world as a partner in the campaign against terrorism.

 I don’t think that there is anything democratic or progressive about this narrative, or about the practices and institutions related to this war on terror framing. The reason the world is now in a crisis is that the major global narrative now is not democracy, justice, socialism, or even liberalism — it is all about security and immigration. This means that Trump is better than Clinton, Marine Le Pen is better than Hollande. It means that a fascist is always better than a democrat, which means that Bashar Assad is better than the opposition.

 Accepting this terrorism narrative makes people like us, those who were active in the revolution, in its peaceful stage, and then in the armed struggle, effectively invisible. All those opposing the regime are ISIS — as Bashar al-Assad is always saying — and the only other choice is him. Accepting this war on terror narrative weakens and disempowers people like us. It disempowers leftist, democratic, and feminist Syrian organizations and activists, while empowering the regime and the extremists.

 Yes, we have a chance to win people back to secularism. But only provided that Bashar al-Assad is not there. For us to be a real alternative in the country, Bashar and this junta regime that has killed hundreds and thousands of our people cannot be there. I am a leftist and I am an atheist, but I will not fight against ISIS if, behind my back, you put your hand in the hand of Bashar al-Assad.

 If the proposal is, “Let’s focus on defeating ISIS and then afterward, maybe he will still be around,” I will not do it. The one who tortured, humiliated, killed, and despised my people — Bashar al-Assad — is a criminal who must be held accountable. This accountability will furnish a basis for secularists, nationalists, and democrats to compete against mainstream Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, and to fight against nihilist groups like ISIS. Both ISIS and Bashar al-Assad are the extremist powers that must be eradicated in order to build an inclusive Syria.

 I am not saying that things will be OK when these groups are gone. There will be huge problems to deal with in Syrian society. But right now, we don’t have problems in Syria. We have tragedies, we have massacres, we have a horrific human condition. We have a destroyed country and a destroyed society. When Bashar is gone and ISIS is gone, we can hope for a dynamic of rebuilding and reconciliation, in which Syrians can start to put their country back together. But as long as he remains, this will never be possible.

 For us, as Syrians, let me be frank: ISIS is the lesser evil. They have killed maybe 10,000 people, whereas Bashar al-Assad has killed hundreds of thousands. Ask yourself how anyone could tolerate such a situation. Could you imagine that in 10 or 15 years, after crushing all opposition, perhaps the son of Bashar al-Assad will proceed to rule the country after him? How horrible. How criminal. If Bashar al-Assad survives, after killing hundreds of thousands of people, expatriating 5 million more, displacing 6 million within the country, inviting the Iranians and the Russians and Shia militias from around the world to invade Syria, if such an abhorrent criminal survives and maintains his political power, the world will be a much worse place for everyone.

 It is a fable that Western countries did not intervene in Syria. The reality is that they intervened in a very specific way that prevented Assad from falling but guaranteed that the country would be destroyed. The United States pressured Turkey and other countries very early on to prevent them from providing decisive assistance to the Syrian opposition. In doing so, these countries vetoed Assad’s being toppled by the Syrian people by force. Meanwhile, as we can see, they have no problem watching the Syrian revolution be crushed by force.

 The United States also negotiated the sordid chemical weapons deal with Russia in 2013 — a deal that solved a big problem for America, Russia, Israel, and for the Assad regime, but did nothing for the Syrian people. The United States also led the “Friends of the Syrian People” group, which it then sidelined and destroyed. Leftists in the West should know this: In many important ways, the Americans have been supporting Bashar al-Assad. The United States helped create a situation in which Syria would be plunged into chaos, but the regime would remain in power.

 I want Assad to be hanged now, not tomorrow. But there needs to be a vision, the cornerstone of which is to change the political environment of Syria substantially — to build a new Syria on an inclusive basis, with a new majority in the country. For such a majority to be built, you must both overthrow Bashar al-Assad and fight ISIS. This will help Alawites to be independent from the Assad regime and will isolate the extremists among the Sunnis. It will be good for the Christians and Druze and other minorities and will help unite them around issues that transcend sectarian divisions. We have people who are Sunnis who still refuse to be identified by their sect. There are many people like me and others who want real change and want to be part of this new Syrian majority. Only such a solution could be sustainable, and it will be the beginning of solving this crisis that is aggravating the entire world now.

 Ultimately, it is not a matter of intervention against Assad. It is a matter of helping Syrians to regain ownership of their country and to hold the criminals accountable. ISIS is not that big of a monster. It can be easily defeated. Many of us are people from Raqqa [ISIS’s capital], scattered around the world, and we are all ready to go and fight them. But we are not ready to go back to slavery under Bashar al-Assad. This is a clique and junta that killed and tortured on an industrial scale. Under international law, it is meant to be held accountable. This is not something that we are inventing. We don’t ask Obama or Hollande to come solve our problems. International law was breached several times, and those who did this should be held accountable. We have a special tribunal at The Hague and Bashar al-Assad should be referred there.

 We are resilient people. We still believe in human dignity and in a better future for ourselves and others. We have a cause, and it is a just cause. I think that the Syrian revolution liberated us from an inferiority complex we had toward the other people of the world. We don’t wait for others to solve our problems now, or to define for us what is just and what is fair. We are struggling for our emancipation, without illusions. We are hopeful that more people will join us in this struggle. It is not just about Syria any longer. It is about the world.'

Smuggled in a hearse, Syrian lives to tell of torture by Assad’s forces

 'Sami Al Sari will never forget the sheer terror of lying next to so many corpses in the back of the hearse.

 "They were naked, signs of torture were obvious on their bodies and faces," he recalled of the day when he was finally reunited with his family after four months of vicious torture in the hands of Syria’s regime forces.

 The 25-year-old Syrian was smuggled out of a notorious prison in a hearse full of dead inmates, and dumped in a desolate area outside Damascus in November 2012. His escape was possible only because his family paid a hefty sum of two million Syrian pounds (Dh34,440) to rescue him.

 "I was surrounded by horror for a whole hour that felt like a decade."

 When the Syrian revolution started in 2011, Sami was only 20 years old and a final year student studying political science at Damascus University. Like many other youths at that time, he could not sit and watch the uprising happening in his country without taking part in it. On July 16 the following year, more than a year after the Arab Spring started, Syrian security forces stormed Sami’s house, and arrested him and his four friends for taking part in a protest in front of the Iranian embassy.

  "At that moment, everything turned dark in front of my eyes. Not just because I was blindfolded, but also for knowing where I was taken to. I heard many horror stories of that place, and I thought I would be one lucky guy if I ever made it out alive," Sami said.

 He and his friends were taken to the so-called "Apparatus 215" – an infamous detention centre run by forces loyal to president Bashar Al Assad. It was there that the "torture festival" began, said Sami.

 The guards separated the friends, and placed Sami in solitary confinement. He has not seen or heard any news of his friends since then.

 "The cell was very dirty. I couldn’t sleep or sit at the beginning. There were bugs and rodents everywhere. I was getting just one meal a day that contained a piece of bread with a barely edible potato, and one dirty bottle of water," Sami recalled.

 "I was beaten and lashed with a whip on my whole body, put on a torturing chair called ‘Nazi’s chair’ that almost broke my back, cigarettes were put out in my body, and I was hung from a windowsill for hours. It was four months of non-stop torture," Sami said.

 "Then came the electrocution. They would shock me on my head, my neck and all over. It was extremely painful."

 Sami was heavily and routinely electrocuted, until one day when he lost consciousness during one of the sessions. He thinks it was around this time that he suffered a temporary loss of memory and has little recollection of what his tormentors did to him after that.

 He believes, however, that they continued to torture him even when he was experiencing amnesia. "When I eventually gained some of my memory back, I was able to see clearly the signs of torture all over my body," he said. It was when he was next to all the dead bodies that he "started recalling everything I went through until that moment", he said.

 Following months on the run, Sami’s family decided to relocate with him from Damascus to the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where they were originally from. He finally made it to Turkey in April this year after obtaining fake identification papers and enduring an arduous journey through many checkpoints.

 It was only when his family managed to escape to Turkey that he broke his silence. But, like so many other Syrian refugees who have escaped torture and death under the tyranny of war, Sami is still struggling to get back on his feet.

 "The screaming of other inmates echoed all over the place through the day and night," he recalls of his time in prison. "It was a horrifying thing by itself. It was unbelievably inhuman." '

On Syrian border, rebel goals not all shared by Turkish backers

 ' "Our most important target is to break the siege of Aleppo. There, our FSA brothers are trapped," Ismail, a commander from the Sultan Murad group, an FSA faction, told Reuters in Jarablus, wearing camouflage fatigues and Adidas sneakers. "This is our own idea, but in the coming days we will discuss this with our Turkish brothers," he said.

 The answer may not be what he wants to hear. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin agreed at a meeting in Istanbul last week to try to seek common ground on Syria, despite backing opposing sides, although there has been little sign of concrete progress. Erdogan said he had spoken with Putin on Tuesday and agreed to try to help meet a Russian demand that fighters from the group formally known as the Nusra Front, now called Jabhat Fatah al Sham, be removed from Aleppo.

 "The necessary orders were given to our friends, and they will do what is needed," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

 Such willingness to do Moscow's bidding is unlikely to go down well with the FSA fighters Turkey is backing.

 "Russia says they are bombing terrorists, but be it al Nusra or Ahrar al Sham, these are people who have fought with us to save our land," Sighli Sighli, another commander from the Sultan Murad brigade, told Reuters in Jarablus.

 He said he was grateful for the backing of the Turkish military, and that the FSA's recent advances could not have been achieved without it, but that Aleppo was the strategic goal.

 "It's not possible for us to accept what Russia or Iran or the PYD (Kurdish militia) wants to do with our country. This land belongs to Syrians, not Russians or Iranians," he said.

 Some of the civilians in Jarablus, where shops have gradually reopened selling fruit and cloth as rebel fighters patrol the streets on foot and in pick-up trucks, are also suspicious of Ankara's warming ties with Moscow.

 "My family is starving in Aleppo. Thousands are starving... Erdogan has left our people there to die, he has abandoned us," said one Turkmen resident who gave his name only as Yahya, and who said his wife and five children were in Aleppo.

 Some of the civilians in Jarablus, where shops have gradually reopened selling fruit and cloth as rebel fighters patrol the streets on foot and in pick-up trucks, are also suspicious of Ankara's warming ties with Moscow.

 "My family is starving in Aleppo. Thousands are starving... Erdogan has left our people there to die, he has abandoned us," said one Turkmen resident who gave his name only as Yahya, and who said his wife and five children were in Aleppo.

 "We have put aside our desire to fight Assad just for now. We haven’t abandoned it ... it's not like we've dropped our target," Bessam Muhammed, a 40-year-old rebel fighter, told Reuters in the garden of a Turkish-run field hospital.

 "We haven’t come all the way and fought this war to seize Jarablus and then stay here," he said.

 Operation Euphrates Shield has made good progress. Backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, the rebels captured the village of Dabiq, southwest of Jarablus, from Islamic State on Sunday, a stronghold where the jihadist group had promised a final, apocalyptic battle with the West.

 Turkey's military has said border security has now been largely achieved. But as the offensive moves towards al-Bab, 35 km (22 miles) northeast of Aleppo, the battle may get harder.

 "The fight here for Jarablus was easy, but the fight for al-Bab will be much harder. Here there wasn't much resistance. They fled the town and we moved in," said Mahmut, 26, an FSA fighter wearing a Turkish police helmet.

 "We don’t want to stop here or in al Bab. Next is Aleppo." '

The people demand the downfall of the régime

No to systematic displacement

Monther Etaky:
 "This is a peaceful protest organized by activists and civilians against systematic displacement which Regime and Russia decides to force on them."

Syria rebels reject Aleppo withdrawal after Russian statement

 'Syrian rebels said on Tuesday they rejected any withdrawal of fighters from Aleppo after Russia announced a halt in air raids which it said was designed to allow insurgents to leave and to separate moderate fighters from extremist militants.

 "The factions completely reject any exit - this is surrender," said Zakaria Malahifji, the political officer of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group.

 Al-Farouk Abu Bakr, an Aleppo commander in the powerful Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, said the rebels would fight on.

 "When we took up arms at the start of the revolution to defend our abandoned people we promised God that we would not lay them down until the downfall of this criminal regime," he said, referring to President Bashar al-Assad's government.

 "There are no terrorists in Aleppo," he said, speaking from Aleppo.'

‘Are You Silent Because There Are Muslims in Our Country?’

 'Last week was the worst yet for the besieged neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo. Russian and Syrian government warplanes launched a new campaign of indiscriminate bombing Tuesday, terrorizing the city and causing a wave of casualties. On Friday, the warplanes targeted the area’s food supply, destroying a bread distribution facility and attacking a flour mill.

 A staggering 174 airstrikes were launched over the course of the week on eastern Aleppo, the rebel-controlled portion of the city, and 159 deaths were reported through mid-afternoon Friday.

 For one resident of eastern Aleppo, the silence of the United States and its allies — which have not taken any military steps to stop the onslaught — has made an already intolerable situation even worse.

 “I want to ask the Western world, which has laws to protect animals: Where are you when it comes to protecting women, children, the elderly, and the disabled?” said Fatima Kaddour, “Are you silent because there are Muslims in our country and they should be exterminated?”

 Kaddour, a 56-year-old housewife and mother of 11 children, lives in a one-room apartment, along with her son and two daughters, close to the front lines with government forces. It is not her flat. Like so many of their neighbors, her family was internally displaced, forced to move from their old home in the Salahuddin district of eastern Aleppo when their house was destroyed in January.

 She railed at the ruling regime for attacking Syrians but said she’s ready to leave the rebel-held areas if given a chance. Like many other Syrians, she is perplexed by the U.S. fixation on destroying Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the al Qaeda affiliate formerly known as the Nusra Front, rather than acting to stop the regime’s assault on civilians. Jabhat Fatah al Sham is a relatively small player in Aleppo and runs the areas under its control in an orderly, nonabusive fashion, she said.

 Although she and her children have tried to fix up their new home, the bombing campaign has broken the windows and damaged the doors. It is full of sunlight, and there is room for the children to study, she said. But when they hear warplanes overhead, usually once or twice a day, “We run to the bathroom or the hall.”

 Compared with some other residents of eastern Aleppo, they are lucky. Not long ago, the Russian or Syrian air force bombed a building nearby that had housed five families, reducing it to a heap of rubble. All 20 inhabitants were killed, and most are still under the debris, she said.

 The sole survivor from one of the families was a girl of 10, who had not been in the building. For a full week, she slept in the street, waiting for the civil defense volunteers to dig out her relatives, Kaddour said. But the volunteers lacked the equipment to recover the bodies, and the ruins have become their grave. The girl was so traumatized that she would not speak to a family that offered to informally adopt her, and in frustration they took her to an orphanage in the Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo.

 “She never laughs. She never cries. She never asks for anything, even food,” Kaddour said. “The other children feed her.”

 Meals for those living in besieged Aleppo are spartan, consisting of Syrian flat bread, which humanitarian aid groups distribute every other day, rice, lentils, and bulgur, a local grain that can be cooked or consumed raw when mixed with water. The grains are distributed in food packets every second or third month. Residents obtain water from a water delivery service, which provides 250 gallons to fill a tank for $10 — as long as the purchaser can supply the fuel to power the delivery truck. But fuel is almost impossible to find.

 Because of the cost of cooking fuel, residents comb destroyed buildings for scrap wood, which they use for a fire to boil water, Kaddour said.

 The situation in Aleppo is at the edge of a still bigger disaster, with the main vulnerabilities in the area being fuel and water, according to the top official in rebel-held parts of the province. The city had built up supplies in anticipation of a siege of up to six months, said the official, Mohammad Fadelah, in a phone call Friday. But it cannot use them all due to a fuel shortage.

 “We brought in substantial amounts of wheat, but the problem is we don’t have the fuel to run the mills to make the flour,” said Fadelah, the president of the provincial council.

 The fuel shortage also threatens to paralyze water filtration systems, which make the area’s well water fit for human consumption. The enclave also suffers from a growing crisis in health care, as two of the 10 hospitals in the area were recently destroyed, and a shortage of medicine grows worse.

 “We had our strategic plan before the siege to keep functioning for six months,” he said. “But with the recent escalation, I don’t think we would be able to serve that long.”

 The children of eastern Aleppo, however, are forced to take on tasks that would terrify even the bravest adults. Kaddour is both proud of and worried for her teenage son, Amir, who volunteers at a local hospital, helping rescue people pinned down when buildings collapse. He got involved in the job after enrolling in a first-aid course without telling her, using his pocket money to buy a first-aid kit.

 “I don’t want him to leave the house when there is bombing,” she said. “Sometimes he listens to me. Other times he sneaks out and leaves without telling me.”

 On one occasion, when Amir was working, two missiles struck the building next door to her and set it on fire. Neighbors told her that they’d seen her son and he was safe. But when she began searching for him, she came upon the bodies of two young men who’d died in the attack.

 “I lost consciousness. I didn’t feel anything for six hours. Even when I was awake, I couldn’t remember anything for a week,” she said.

 Now she and her family live in fear for their future. Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russia appear determined to reconquer all of Aleppo, which was once the country’s largest city. Kaddour believes they want to expel the people of eastern Aleppo, as they have the population of Darayya and other towns near Damascus.

 “They have destroyed us, expelled us, and killed us only because a group of youths protested and asked for freedom, the freedom of opinion, of education, and to live as you like,” she said. “They took away everything from us, even the air, which they polluted with chlorine gas, with phosphorus and the smell of ruin.”

 “Now after all the suffering, we are worried they will take us out in the green buses,” she said — referring to the state-owned fleet used to deport Darayya residents from their hometown to rebel-held areas. She said she’d go willingly to Gaziantep, Turkey, where she has a married daughter, and others would go to rebel-held Idlib or even to the regime-held areas.

 “The international community has ignored us,” she said. “We are unarmed. And we are fed up.” '

Aleppo to the Ivy League: Syrian doctor preps for end of war

 'Khaled Almilaji coordinated a campaign that vaccinated 1.4 million Syrian children and risked his life to provide medical care. He is one of three Syrian scholars studying at Brown University, which said last year it would welcome Syrians after dozens of governors attempted to block refugees.

  He said he feels lucky because many other Syrian doctors have had to give up their work after sacrificing for five years, watching their families suffer and seeing their children go without an education.

 "Every time I go inside Syria, I see the smile on the face of families and people. They say, 'We will stay here. We will never go out, and we will still fight this regime,'" he said. "You cannot go out with less energy, just to continue supporting those people."

 Almilaji was born in Aleppo, now the epicenter of Syria's conflict. He studied in the coastal city of Latakia to treat disorders of the ear, nose and throat. He was preparing to go to Stuttgart, Germany, for a residency in March 2011 when anti-government protests sparked the conflict.

 He treated protesters who likely would have been arrested or killed if they went to government-run hospitals, he said, and he set up field hospitals.

 "They accept to be killed if this is the way to show the world we are in a revolution here," he said. "But I cannot accept that those people will never go to a protest because they don't have any hospitals to receive them in case they are injured."

 Almilaji said he was arrested in September 2011 in Damascus, interrogated and tortured. The savagery he witnessed during six months in prison convinced him he was "one thousand percent correct" in opposing the regime, he added.

 Almilaji returned to Aleppo after his release and cared for protesters' families, considered a crime. A friend who was helping those families was arrested in April 2012. Almilaji escaped to Gaziantep, Turkey, and his parents soon followed.

 A U.N. commission found government forces in Syria deliberately target medical personnel to gain a military advantage, by depriving the opposition and those perceived to support them of medical assistance. The commission called the targeting of medical personnel one of the most insidious trends of the war.

 Almilaji translated for Syrians in Turkish hospitals and worked to equip Turkey with ambulances to transfer Syrians from the border. He made trips into Syria to work in a medical clinic in Aleppo and deliver medical supplies. He successfully pushed for the building of underground hospitals because he expected health facilities to come under increasing attack, a fear that proved true.

 He said he joined the humanitarian arm of the opposition and began monitoring the spread of communicable diseases in northern Syria by setting up an early warning response and alert network.

 The first case of polio was discovered through the network in October 2013 in eastern Syria, he said. Almilaji planned the vaccination campaign as the administrative director. Teams went house to house and vaccinated 1.4 million Syrian children.

 He is working with Canadian doctors to establish safe health facilities in Syria, train medical workers and connect hospitals. The group formed the Canadian International Medical Relief Organization, and Almilaji reviews the projects from Providence.

 If insurgents are still fighting President Bashar Assad's forces when he graduates in two years, Almilaji plans to work from Turkey on relief efforts that can later facilitate redevelopment. When Syria is stable enough, he wants to return and work on preventing diseases and other health problems, since resources for treating ailments will continue to be scarce.'

First video footage of FSA rebels in Syria's Dabiq

 'In this video footage filmed by a Rudaw news partner in Syria, rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are seen in the town of Dabiq in northern Aleppo on Sunday morning.

 The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) said its forces captured Dabiq from ISIS after violent clashes.

 “Free Syrian Army forces have taken control of the strategic town of Dabiq in the northern Aleppo countryside after violent clashes with Daesh (ISIS),” the FSA said in a tweet.

 Backed by Turkish air strikes the FSA launched an offensive against ISIS in Dabiq on Saturday as part of their drive against the extremist group.

 According to the US-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights ISIS had stationed 1,200 of its fighters in Dabiq, to protect a town so important to ISIS that it gives its name to the militants' main magazine.' 

 

'We need deeds, not words': bombs fall on Aleppo as MPs debate Syria

 ' “At the moment we have an aircraft in the sky above the hospital, so we are hoping that we won’t get hit,” said Hamza Khatib, one of the handful of medics still working in rebel-held Aleppo, who lost two patients on Tuesday morning alone.

 As MPs debated the risks and benefits of a no-fly zone, he said it was the only hope for about a quarter of a million people in rebel-held Aleppo.

 “The only thing that we really need is to stop the main source of the violence and killing: Russia and the regime aircraft. We don’t want medical aid, we don’t want food – that will make us last longer, but if there is still bombing, it will not save our lives.”

 Monther Etaky, a journalist, stayed home with his wife and baby son during the debate. He had raced back to comfort them after the bombardment began and, with a surveillance plane circling overhead, said he was worried the jets would return. “Even the small children in Aleppo can recognise every plane by its sound now,” he said.

 Like many in Aleppo, he is frustrated by the international attention focused on a proposal from the UN special envoy to Syria. Staffan de Mistura has offered to personally escort the most radical rebel faction out of Aleppo if doing so would bring a halt to the bombardment.

 “I wonder if he is really interested in our situation and saving Syrian blood and life? If so, I invite him to deliver aid here personally,” Etaky said. “I invite him to escort the prisoners out of Assad’s jails, I invite him to escort out the sectarian groups fighting for Assad.”

 For many in Aleppo, the debate was just another day of talking that will bring no change in their suffering.'

“There are debates and speeches outside Aleppo, and Assad and Russians are killing us inside,” said activist Abdulkafi Alhamdo. “We need deeds, not words.”

Young filmmaker aims to tell besieged Syrians' story

 'A Syrian filmmaker whose harrowing footage of sarin gas victims in 2013 was seen around the world is using his experience of the attack and conflict to make a drama looking at why people take up arms in a war which began as a peaceful revolution. Humam Husari's self-financed short film explores the chemical attack near Damascus through the eyes of a rebel fighter who lost his wife and child but was denied time to bury them. Instead, he is called to defend his town from a government offensive. The story is based on real-life events, he said.

 "We need to understand how people were pushed into this war and to be part of it," said Husari, 30. "I am talking about a story that I lived with. They are real characters."

 Making the film was an emotional but necessary experience for Husari and his performers, who were witnesses to and victims of the attack, and not trained actors.

 "The most difficult thing was the casting and auditions," said Husari, who took about two months to write, produce and direct the 15-minute film and is currently editing it. "A 70-year-old man said to me: I want to be part of this movie because I lost 13 of my family ... I want the world to know what we've been through. And all I wanted from him is just to be a dead body," he said.

 "I was amazed with how much those people were able to express their tragedy and to cooperate with me on this movie."

 Mohamed Demashki, a business student and professional bodybuilder before the war who plays the main character, said he took part in the film because of its message.

 "It tries to convey to the world that the people who live here are not just fighters, they are not terrorists. They are people with a life. The war conditions them to become fighters," he said.

 When the sarin attack happened, Husari took his camera to the makeshift hospitals that sprang up to cope with thousands of victims and sent the footage to international media.

 "I wasn't filming because I am a cameraman, I was filming because this is the only thing I could do for the victims," he said.

 "During it, you can't feel anything, you just feel shock ... After, when you just think about what you have witnessed, you rethink how big and real and really tragic this was. It is not easy for me to watch my footage."

 Husari, who studied film at the Brighton Film School in Britain, now makes a living covering the Syrian conflict for international news organizations, but still hopes to make filmmaking his career. Husari said that living the daily reality of war will equip him to tell the story of the conflict when the war ends and films can start to be made.

 "Let's just think about how I reacted to those war jets in the sky. It has become something very normal to me, and this is something it is really hard to understand from the outside," he said.

 He has acquired the tools to direct actors to accurately respond to events in a conflict setting, he said.

 "I feel I have a responsibility in the future to tell this story, these stories, through cinema and drama. That's usually what happens after every war," he said.

 With parts of Damascus's Ghouta under opposition control from the beginning of the conflict, a number of areas have come under siege by Syrian government and allied forces. Making cinema in a place where there is no free passage of food, people and other supplies is tough. Husari made his lighting equipment and camera track himself, but had the good fortune to have access to a good quality camera.

 "It is an irony that in a besieged area you can find the best cameras you need," he said.'

"Singing and dancing, asking for the same goals - freedom and dignity"

 Robin Yassin-Kassab: 

 "I don't think there is a play between the superpowers. I don't think there is a battle between Russia and America. On the ground in Syria, the perception is that they are more or less on the same side. America wants Bashar al-Assad to go, but the régime to stay in place. Russia wants Bashar al-Assad to stay as well, and they're trying very hard to work together. When Assad killed 1500 people with sarin gas in 2013, Obama's red line disappeared, and he very publicly handed the Syria file to Russia. He's just done a deal with Iran over the nuclear issue, which is a good thing, but precisely at the moment when Iran has got tens of thousands of occupation troops, including Shia jihadists, in Syria. He's not talking about that. So the Syrians think Russia and America are, more or less, on the same side, the whole world is betraying them."

 Mazen Darwish:

 "This is our life for more than four years. This is daily Syrian life in many places. And they ask why are there all these refugees, why do people become extreme and turn to terrorism? This is the result." 

 Robin Yassin-Kassab: 

 "We have to remember that as well as the horrors of war, and the extremists, the jihadists, the fascist régime, the foreign occupation, there is also remarkable stuff happening in Syria, in the revolutionary areas, which nobody talks about, which is part of the solution. There are over 400 local councils in Syria, many of them democratically elected; and these are the people who are representative Syrians, they are keeping life together in the most difficult of circumstances. That's what's under threat in Aleppo. Aleppo is the biggest concentration of civil society activists and groups, education services, the White Helmets, everybody else, in the country. If they manage to destroy that in Syria, then in a year or two we will be facing just jihadism."

 Mazen Darwish:

 "Nobody can win in the end through military means. We are talking about 300,000 civilians in this area. If they want to kill all of them, this is the only way to have a victory." 

  Robin Yassin-Kassab: 

 "I must dispute that the Syrian government forces are trying to invade eastern Aleppo. It's not really the Syrian government forces. The Syrian Army is more or less finished. It hasn't won a battle by itself since 2012. It's Russian bombs, Iranian and international Shia jihadist ground troops. It's a foreign occupation as much as it's a civil war at this point."

 Mazen Darwish:

 "From the beginning, the régime pushed for this solution -for the extremism. While we were arrested, the human rights defenders and civil society leaders, Assad released more than a thousand jihadists from al-Qaeda from prison. So from the beginning they have had this strategy, to push the country towards violence. And because they get support, not just from Russia and Iran, but from the West in general. They see what happens in Syria, and they don't care, or don't think we will reach this level. Only now after the refugee crisis has Syria become important, but what has happened is systematic, and this is the result."

 Robin Yassin-Kassab:
 

 "The revolution survives, remarkably, despite the fact that the régime has made it into a war, and done everything it can to bring extremists into the country so that the West will be scared of the alternative. Nevertheless, there are hundreds of democratically elected councils, there are tens of Free radio stations, Free newspapers, Free TV stations, women's centres." 

  Mazen Darwish:

 "Each time you have a ceasefire, like you had in February, thousands of people come out in civil protests again. Singing and dancing, asking for the same goals - freedom and dignity."

Al-Zoghbi Uncovers Russian Plan Targeting Idlib, Hama following Aleppo

 'Head of the Syrian opposition delegation to Geneva, Asaad al-Zoghbi revealed a Russian-Iranian plan in coordination with the Assad regime to move the systematic destructive battle from Aleppo to the city of Idlib and later to Hama.

 In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat published on Monday, al-Zoghbi said that a meeting of the opposition held in Istanbul two days ago agreed on uniting all military opposition factions under one brigade and one leadership capable of facing the Russian destructive forces that are supported by the Syrian regime and Iranian militias.

 The position will have two parts: Enhance the military operations and ask for the help of the international community without relying on Washington,” he said.

 Commenting on the latest developments in Aleppo, al-Zoghbi said: “Currently, there is a complete systematic destruction of Aleppo, and this destruction is on its way to devastate Idlib and later Hama. The attention in Syria is not directed anymore to a revolution against the Assad regime, but rather towards the Aleppo battle. This is what the Russians and the Americans want.

 “After this phase, an agreement will be reached supported by a decision from the U.N. Security Council. Then everybody will forget about what Assad controls from Lattakia to Damascus.”

 The head of the Syrian negotiating team said scores of Russian warplanes are currently bombing Aleppo. “There was a Russian plan that the Russian Defense Minister and Iran had agreed on during a meeting held three months ago in Tehran to either totally control Aleppo, or completely destroy the city.”

 He said that since the announcement of the alleged seven-day ceasefire during the Eid al-Adha, the Russians, the Iranians and the regime were mobilizing their forces and more than 8,300 soldiers to prepare for the battle of Aleppo.

 Al-Zoghbi said that Saudi Arabia and other brotherly countries, which are helping the Syrian opposition, have decided to back the armed opposition and provide them with weapons.

 He said Turkey also supports arming the opposition, adding he expected a similar position from Gulf countries soon.'