‘The economic interests of military actors are not enough to create the necessary conditions for a stable division of the territory and its resources, which confirms the criticism levelled at theories that reduce civil war to the predatory exploitation by violent actors who avoid, or at least, minimize confrontation. On the contrary, anticipation of a durable reconstruction of the state brings with it an intensification of violent competition for control of territory, state institutions, and international recognition. The development of a bureaucracy is a key element in this struggle, since the ability to accumulate resources strongly impacts the probability of an armed group’s survival.’
[Prolegomena, p15]*********************************************
‘Far
from negotiating, ceding, or managing the repression a minima, the régime exacerbated the crisis with a strategy of
unbridled violence. This polarizing approach was made possible by the coherence
of institutions dominated by the security apparatus, which was tightening its
grip on all fields. By designating the protesters as internal enemies, the régime legitimized its use of violence. Lacking any
institutional relay and faced with increasingly violent repression, the
protesters were forced into armed struggle.’
[p37]
‘The
Syrian insurgency has one unexpected feature: the lack of exclusive control of
territories by its armed groups. The coexistence of armed, nonhierarchically
organized groups could have led to immediate fragmentation, territorial as well
as political. Instead we observe the fluidity with which fighters shift from
one group to another and the low incidence of armed conflict between them.
Furthermore, these improvised units often merged to tackle more ambitious
goals. The first explanation lies in the absence of political parties, that the
protesters rejected as a source of division. Moreover the armed groups did not
represent a specific community. Until the spring of 2013, insurgent groups
advancing with the front line regarded themselves as the forerunners of a
national army.
A countervailing dynamic asserts itself as the advancing transnational
movements, the PKK and the Islamic State, eliminate all competing groups from
their territory.
From the start, Damascus’ policy was to bolster the most radical groups
(informal agreements with the PKK, the release of radical jihadists from the
Iraq war) as a tactic for dividing the opposition.’
[pp37-39]
*********************************************
‘In the 1990s and 2000s, those close to power took control of entire sectors of the economy. “The régime liberalized the economy sector by sector. That way its members were able to maintain control” explained a businessman from Aleppo who had fled to Turkey, “one family, one of whose members was the Minister of Health, was able to develop a large pharmaceutical company, because part of its revenue was diverted to the clan in power.” ‘ A clique close to the régime purloined the
national wealth. The inequalities were even more strongly felt, given the
conspicuous consumption of the elite, and the increased access of the middle
class to the Internet and mobile phone access to foreign media. On the one
hand, the internationalized elites close to the régime had passports, studied
abroad, and were free to purchase imported goods. By contrast, the children of
the middle classes, often with diplomas but without economic capital, and the
working class living in informal settlements, saw their standard of living
fall.’
[pp51-52]
‘The security institutions remained in the
hands of the Alawites, a community not able to betray the régime. Some Sunnis
had command positions, but they were rather the exception, while the elite army
units that protected the capital – the Special Forces Division, the Republican
Guard, and the 4th Division – were in the hands of Alawites.
Lower-ranking Alawite officers from the Secret Services or the 4th
Division often had more power than a Sunni general. In addition, the régime
actively encouraged Alawite populations to settle in certain strategic Damascus
suburbs.’
[p57]
‘The régime manipulated the PKK to monitor Syrian Kurds and to destabilise
Turkey. After leaving Turkey in 1979, the leadership of the party was based in
Syria until the late 1990s. At that time, Syrian Kurdish organisations faced
severe repression, but the PKK was free to recruit Syrian Kurds with the
proviso that they would not act inside Syria itself. The presence of the PKK
and its collaboration with the régime made any significant mobilization of
Syrian Kurds difficult. “The PKK was working hand in hand with the régime.
Instead of doing your military service for the Syrian state, you could serve
within the ranks of the PKK. If someone was opposed to the régime, it was the
PKK that denounced him and had him arrested.”
In 1998, bowing to pressure from Turkey, the
Syrian security services dismantled the PKK’s structures in Turkey. Despite the
creation of a Syrian branch under the name PYD by 2003, the PKK was losing
influence. This led to a renewed mobilization among the Kurdish population. The
protest, which started in Qamishli, is emblematic of the rise of Kurdish
protests in 2004. Faced with Kurdish demonstrators demanding civil rights, Damascus
could stop the movement only with a brutal crackdown that resulted in dozens of
deaths. The régime also relied on recently settled Arabs in Kurdish regions to
attack protesters that were accused of holding separatist ambitions backed by
the West.’
[p60]
‘After 2008, Bashar al-Assad’s régime would
tighten its control over the religious field. Educational institutions directly
controlled by the régime were created, and several religious leaders who had
dared criticize the régime were jailed, among them the son of the former Grand
Mufti Salah al-Din Kuftaro. How effective this strategy was became evident by
the time of the protests in 2011: Most of the important sheikhs and imams from
the mosques were now closely collaborating with the security apparatus.
The régime had succeeded in producing a depoliticized society in which
political organizations were disconnected from the rest of society. This
created a gulf between the authorities – designated as they were by an opaque
process – and the population. The elections in Syria were a formality, the
Baath party allies being mere satellites offering no political alternatives.
“In January 2011, just before the revolution,” confides a resident of Aleppo,
“the mayor of Aleppo was suddenly changed, without anyone knowing why. But this
type of event was not unusual; the political system was closed in on itself,
and the people had very little information about its leaders.”
The Baathist régime had in effect eliminated independent political movements.
The repression was particularly successful, since, on the eve of the protest
movement of 2011, no organised political opposition existed in Syria.
The inability of the institutional actors to lead any form of protest had two
consequences,: high initial costs for the protesters and the rapid spread of
the unrest due to a lack of representatives able to articulate sectorial,
negotiable demands.’
[pp63-64]
‘On March 13th, 2011, fifteen
teenagers from Daraa, a city in southern Syria, were tortured by intelligence
services for having scrawled anti-régime graffiti. Peaceful protests that
followed in the city spread quickly across much of the country.
[Chapter 2, pp65-67]
“The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen
unfolded like a dream for us! When Tripoli fell, I said to myself that it’s
possible! That we also had a chance against Bashar in Syria! The impossible
became possible!”
[p71]
‘ “God is the Greatest” (Allah Akbar): this slogan was consensual in a country
with an overwhelmingly Sunni majority and held appeal for the Christian actor
Fares al-Helou, who, in April 2011, chanted it in front of the al-Hasan Mosque
in Damascus. Other slogans explicitly referred to the unity of the religious
communities: Sunnis and Alawites, united, united, united.” (Sunni w alawi, wahad,
wahad, wahad). Similarly, the weekly slogan on Friday May 20th,
voted on in Facebook and chanted by processions throughout the country, was
“Azadi”, the Kurdish word for freedom.
“Our slogans were fairly general to start
with. It was only after several protests that we began to chant slogans against
the régime.” “The people want the fall of the régime” (al-Cha’ab yurid isqat
al-Nidham) and the vote on Facebook for “Leave!” (Irhal) as the weekly slogan
for the week of Friday, July 21st, 2011 underscores the
radicalization of the agenda.’
[p75]
‘The occupation of physical spaces was not a
viable strategy due to the violence of the repressive machinery. One such
attempt, on Clock Square in Homs, on April 17th, ended with dozens
dead.’
[p76]
[p77]
‘In the Kurdish cities (Afrin, Ayn al-Arab) and in the Kurdish areas to the
north of Aleppo from September 2011 on, the PYD suppressed any demonstrations
held there. Young Kurdish protesters therefore travelled into predominantly
Arab neighbourhoods to take part in demonstrations there.
Then there were the informants. So many were working for the régime that it
became difficult to coordinate collective action without the security forces
learning of it and making pre-emptive arrests. This accounts for why, at the
start, no organizations, such as unions, associations or clans, were involved
or played an important part in the protests.’
[p78]
‘The intensity of the discussions and the
shared risk-taking caused an emotional community to coalesce. “The group to
which I belonged quickly became a real family. I spent more time with them than
with my own family. It’s with them that I feel happiest; everything that
happened since 2011, I have shared with them.” Activism was experienced
subjectively as altruistic as opposed to the instrumentalized sectarian
membership in prerevolutionary Syria.’
[p80]
‘The rising wave of violence served in the
short run to reinforce the cohesion of the security institutions. The numerous
war crimes committed by the security organs’ cadres further tied them to the régime.
By turning the conflict into a sectarian one, the régime took the minorities
hostage.
Until early 2013, desertions by senior officers created the illusion of an
imminent collapse of power, while in fact the central power was restructuring
around the security institutions and benefiting from substantial foreign aid.’
[Chapter 3, p85]
“In 2011, the régime’s rhetoric changed to
propaganda that proclaimed ‘the national unity of the Syrians against radical
Sunnis.’ The security services had begun to treat the population differently,
singling out the Sunnis. Everything was done to reject us for being
terrorists.”
[p86]
‘In the spring of 2011, the régime released Kurdish prisoners and concluded an
agreement with the PKK that gave them informal control of Kurdish enclaves –
Jazeera, Ayn al-Arab, Afrin, and the Kurdish districts of Aleppo, in exchange
for bringing the demonstrators to heel.’
[pp86-87]
‘The régime encouraged the ideological
radicalisation of the opposition by having moderates murdered or arrested while
it released radicals from prison. These attempts to divide the opposition were
secondary to the brutal repression intended to radicalize the opposition as
much as serve as a deterrent. The régime evolved its economy of repression by
making torture systematic. Starting in 2011, it arrested and tortured several
hundred thousand people.
[pp88-89]
‘Unable to control the crowds in the streets,
the security forces dispersed the protesters with brutality, and relied heavily
on the militias (shabbiha). “As soon as we came out of the mosque to run away,
the police ransacked everything. A militiaman was slashing people with a sabre,
people right in front of me. One after another I saw them fall until the crowd
pushed me against him.” In some cases the security forces hid inside ambulances
to catch the demonstrators by surprise; the militia even hunted through
hospitals to find the wounded. “The use of violence was systematic from the
start of the movement, beatings outside the mosques or even inside, knife
attacks and sniper fire into the crowd were commonplace.” ‘
[p90]
‘The régime deliberately escalated the crisis
using shadow committees that reported directly to the head of state. Police
General Ahmed Tlass explained:
“There is another instance of decision. It does not officially exist. It
consists of officers from different services, selected one by one, who work at
the Presidential Palace.”
He gave the example of the demonstration on July 1st, 2011 in Hama:
“The protest happened in front of us without any incident. None of the
protesters were armed. But when the crowd reached Orontes Square, about 300
metres from where I was standing, gunfire erupted. According to an
investigation by the police to which I had access, it came from twenty people,
22 to be precise from the Military Security, who had been joined by one member
of State Security.” ‘
[pp90-91]
‘The régime attempted to break the protest
movement with militarized suppressive tactics that included bringing in the
tanks, making extra-judicial arrests, and setting snipers on demonstrators or
on neighbourhoods designated as hostile.
In the first months, the régime endeavoured
to replicate the strategic coup scored in Hama in 1982 by luring a large number
of the opposition into the open before crushing them with the military. Due to
the sheer number of protest hotbeds. Troops were often having to move out again
after a few days to clean out another area where protests were underway.
Daraa was occupied by the army, which entered
the city on April 25th 2011, indiscriminately killing civilians. The
Daraa operation lasted two weeks, then the army moved to attack the Sunni
neighbourhoods in the city of Banyas, and a few days later to Homs. However in
Homs the army failed to take control of the city.
On August 13th 2011, the Navy shelled Sunni neighbourhoods south of
Latakia. In July, the régime bombarded Hama and sent in the tanks. This
operation left over two hundred demonstrators dead over the course of three
days. In early 2012, tanks were sent into the countryside north of Aleppo,
where they stayed a day or two in each town while the troops arrested the men
and destroyed homes along the way.
Limited resources forced the army to
concentrate its resources.
In Rastan (north of Homs) and even in Ghouta (a suburb of Damascus), the army
besieged areas held by the rebels with the objective of starving out
protesters. The army, crippled by desertions, lacked reliable troops that would
allow the retaking the cities. Shelling at first became the régime’s preferred
method of attack, until February 2012, when aerial bombing became generalized.’
[pp91-92]
‘The progressive shift to an armed struggle
grew out of local initiatives beginning only in late 2011. The first groups
formed spontaneously to protect the marchers and neighbourhoods against snipers
and régime militias. The armed protection gave a new impetus to the protesters.
In Homs, in December 2011, the processions swelled with deserters from the army
who had come to offer protection. In Hama, too, with gunmen protecting the
rallies starting in late June 2011, the régime troops had to evacuate several
neighbourhoods, letting the protests spread unchecked.
Some protesters were dead set against
any resort to violence; others were amenable to its limited use if it meant
they could continue the protests: “We were against the move to armed resistance
in Homs. But if we wanted the movement to survive, we had to have protection
when we marched.”
[p94]
‘On June 4th 2011, at Jisr
al-Shughur (in Jabal al-Zawiya near the Turkish border), the Syrian army
suffered its first setback. When members of the security forces opened fire on
a funeral procession, the protesters looted a police station, armed themselves
and were quickly joined by deserters from a nearby military unit. The army
responded with a sweep operation that provoked many more desertions.
The insurgency conquered few territories through frontal assaults. The rebels
mostly seized areas that the security forces had withdrawn from. From mid-July
2012, the régime abandoned most towns north of Aleppo. “In the spring of 2012,
we had to flee from our village when the régime sent in the tanks,” recounted a
resident of Maraa. “We waited at the Turkish border. Three days later we
returned. The army had left, not before pillaging our houses. From this moment
on we took up arms.”
Starting on July 15th 2012, thousands of rebels infiltrated Damascus and took control of several neighbourhoods. On July 19th 2012, the same scenario was repeated in Aleppo, with the eastern half of the city falling into rebel hands. The Battle of Damascus came as a result of the insurgents’ pleas for Arab and Western support based on the belief that, with a concerted push on the capital, they could bring down the régime. In contrast the attack on Aleppo was launched with little external support.
By late summer 2012, it appeared the régime
was on the brink of losing the war. At this point the rebels lost the
initiative. They were bogged down in the old city of Aleppo and unable to seize
the Southern neighbourhoods of Damascus. During 2013, they kept advancing in
the east, with the capture of the city of Raqqa and most of Deir Ezzor, but no
cities fell on the decisive fronts to the south and north.
The lack of training and organization as well as a lack of ammunition for the
frontline fighters explains why the insurgent groups rarely manoeuvred far
outside their home base area. The units had a few Kalashnikovs, little in the
way of heavy weaponry, and no anti-aircraft defence systems. They were
incapable of launching a frontal attack against the régime military with its
heavy weapons, aircraft and armour. The revolutionaries might on occasion
profit from superior local knowledge of the terrain but, lacking technical
expertise, they regularly suffered significant losses during poorly staged
operations.’
[pp95-98]
*********************************************
‘The first months of the uprising saw the
various military units coexisting peacefully. The fighters saw themselves as
belonging to a new Syrian state. In this sense, although organised in small
units and in part self-financed theirs was not a local vision nor did they represent
opposing communities. The absence of any political affiliation also limited
fragmentation; the pre-existing opposition parties were exiled from Syria and
only played a marginal role.’
[Chapter 4, p103]
‘ “I did not participate much in the
demonstrations,” said a former resident of Damascus. “it was very dangerous to
take to the street. But then the régime began bombing out neighbourhood. We
fled our building to take refuge in the suburbs of Damascus. Being in the
movement or not made no difference. The repression, the risks, we were all in
the same boat. That’s how I joined a group in Ghouta [near Damascus.” ‘
[p104]
“I was an artillery man, operating near Idlib up until my desertion in
September 2012. At first to abandon my station seemed a crazy idea. Our officers
were watching us very closely and wouldn’t hesitate to hit us. We had no
contact with the outside world. We were given the coordinates of positions to
shell and that was it. But gradually, there were more and more refusals to obey
orders. I sabotaged our shells so they didn’t explode when they forced us to
shell a village. In September, I realised that out of 1,500 men in my brigade,
only a thousand were left, the others had deserted. I decided to do the same. I
managed to get a phone from which I called my family who put me in touch with a
friend, now fighting in the Kata’ib al-Faruq. He told me to join him in Homs. I
managed to leave the camp in the car that went into town for provisions. Once
in Homs, I discreetly disappeared. My friend was waiting for me in the
government zone with some other men. They gave me civilian clothes and paid for
the taxi to take me to the liberated part of the city of Aleppo. Everything was
planned. I spent a week there at the Revolutionary Security office, which gave
me my papers attesting to my desertion and some money so I could pay for the
trip back to my family.”
[p105]
‘The revolutionaries and deserters were
concentrated in rural areas, between Azaz and al-Bab (north of Aleppo), between
Saluq and Tabqa (Raqqa province), in Jabal al-Zawiya (Idlib province), in the
mountains to the east of Latakia and in the Qalamun mountains on the Lebanese
border. “I was arrested at the end of the summer of 2011 for protesting,” said
one Aleppo revolutionary. “When I was released in February 2012, everything had
changed. Most of the people I had protested with had taken up arms and gone
into hiding in the countryside in Anadan or Maraa. I went to join them.”
In the cities, on the other hand, the insurgent neighbourhoods were generally
the poorer ones, because it was easier to protest there than in the more
affluent areas where the security forces were in tighter control. The areas
where most of the events played out became real battlefields and the massive
repression left the inhabitants with only two options: fight or flight.
“Believe me, in Latakia, if you were living in a poor neighbourhood, you did
not really have a choice, we had to take up arms.” Without enough troops to
control the entire territory, the army made the decision to bomb inaccessible
neighbourhoods.’
[pp106-107]
‘ “In 2012, there were several Druze and
Alawite deserters in our group,” a Daraa revolutionary told us. Similarly,
Kurds, Christians, Arabs, and Turks were still fighting in Aleppo in the summer
of 2013 under the FSA umbrella. In Tabqa and the east, recruiting for the armed
groups reflected tribal affiliations but without causing any noticeable
friction. Gradually, however, a sectarian dynamic began to intrude; Alawites
were de facto excluded from the insurgency, while Christians increasingly
organised their own self defence groups.’
[p108]
“After a few months with al-Nusra Jabhat I was
tired of the strict rules they imposed on their fighters. So, I left to join
Ahrar al-Sham, one of the biggest units in northern Syria. We are as well-armed
there, but above all, free to go home whenever we want.”
[p109]
‘ “We were fighting with one weapon for
three,” said a fighter from Daraa. “Buying new guns was too expensive, so we
used second-hand material taken from our enemies.” ‘
[p111]
‘On April 1st 2012, the
International Conference of the Friends of Syria promised to pay every fighter
joining the FSA 150 dollars, the equivalent of a month’s salary of an average
official. Pay was a crucial issue in ensuring the loyalty of the fighters to
the central command. However, a lack of follow-through from the West and the
Gulf States meant that after the spring of 2013 the pay stopped.’
[p117]
*********************************************
‘ “When we took control of the first villages
and towns, the issue of justice was raised quickly,” explained Sheikh Hossein,
one of the first of the insurgency’s judges in Aleppo province. “We were
fighting against the most terrible dictatorship of the region; our goal was to
bring freedom to the region and allow justice to reign once again.” ‘
[Chapter 5, pp118-119]
‘Starting in late 2012, a police force was
established in each city at the instigation of the National Coalition, the
Governorate Councils, and the professional association of former police
officers. The template for this project was provided by the creation of the
Free Police of Aleppo (Shurtat Halab al-Hurra) in October 2012. “The creation
of the police must release the combatants of the insurgency to fight against
the régime. We remove their responsibility towards the civilians, which they
willingly accept.” ‘
[p124]
‘From December 2012, two processes, the
emergence of local institutions and the attempt to coordinate them from above,
converged in elections held in Turkey. The National Coalition instructed
consensual personalities to select hundreds of delegates from the
insurgent-held parts of the Idlib governorate. This electoral body then met in
Reyhanli (Turkey) and elected the Governmorate Council and then the City
Council of Idlib three months later. The same process was repeated in Aleppo
with elections at Gaziantep (Turkey) in March 2013. In the summer of 2013, this
push to install a hierarchy and central administration continued with local
elections held in sixty-five insurgent neighbourhoods of Aleppo. The same
process was duplicated in Raqqa in January 2014, in the south in Ghouta in
January 2014, and in the rest of the Damascus periphery during the following
months.
That these institutions survived in the face of relentless, brutal bombing can
partly be explained by the fact that they were financed from the outside. Yet,
as this external aid remained sparse, the coordination between municipal and
national organisations (the Syrian National Council, the National Coalition)
was limited. What funds the Western and Gulf countries provided flowed
sporadically. Thus teachers with salaries, amounting to 25 dollars a month, in
Aleppo were rarely paid. In the absence of a reliable flow of money, city
councils continued operating thanks strictly to the volunteer efforts by
thousands of employees.’
[pp130-131]
‘City councils endeavoured to keep medical
and educational services functioning. Hospitals were set up in secret locations
to keep them from being bombed. The same problem arose with the schools, which
were also targeted by the régime’s bombs, and so had to be clandestine and
mobile.’
[p132]
*********************************************
‘From 2012 on, the Obama administration
refused to support the insurrection militarily in its fight with the régime.
The American authorities wanted to avoid anything that could lead to “boots on
the ground.” The chemical attacks against civilian populations in Ghouta in
August 2013, which caused between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths, later revealed the
equivocations of the American government. This attack directly called US
credibility into question: President Barack Obama had publicly drawn a “red
line” against such attacks in a speech a year earlier.
The military victories of the Islamic State forced the United States to reenter
the war with targeted bombing, Special Forces deployment, and military support
for the PKK/PYD. While Obama had ruled out the possibility of a no-fly zone in
Syria, the United States proceeded to set one up for the Syrian branch of the
Kurdish movement that first shielded it from the régime when they clashed over
control of the city of Hasaka in August 2016 and, next against the Turks
advancing on Manbij in September 2016. Yet the PKK mainly used its weaponry in
the service of creating a unified Kurdish territory from Afrin to Manbij.’
[Chapter 7, pp149-150]
*********************************************
‘In Aleppo and Damascus, Kurds generally
mobilised within the same networks as the Arab revolutionaries. “I went to my
first demonstrations with my university friends, including several Kurds,” an
Arab resident from Aleppo explained. “We got together the day before to
finalise our itinerary and choose our slogans. We were united.” Kurdish
demonstrators saw themselves as an intrinsic part of the opposition, campaigning
for the creation of a democratic state. “During the first months of the
insurrection, we chanted the same slogans as the rest of Syria: ‘Down with the
régime.’ We protested on Fridays about the same issues as the other
protesters.”
When the régime launched attacks against rebel districts in Homs and Hama,
protests erupted in the Kurdish regions. “In Aleppo and Damascus, Kurds mingled
with the Arab population daily. The demonstrations were mixed. There were many
Arabs in the group of friends I demonstrated with. Sometimes, cousins from
Jazeera would come to visit us in Damascus. They gave us advice on how to deal
with the police, how to disband after a demonstration.” ‘
[Chapter 8, pp165-166]
‘In 2012, the régime’s alliance with an
external actor, the PKK, meant that Kurdish enclaves were definitively
separated from the rest of the insurrection. From the summer of 2011, the PKK
succeeded in negotiating with Damascus a gradual return to the three Kurdish
pockets on the Turkish border (Afrin, Ayn al-Arab and Jazeera). In exchange, it
would subdue the Kurdish protesters and refrain from aligning with the FSA. In
Syria, PYD militants, who had been arrested in the 2000s were released, and the
party formed a militia to bring the Kurdish region under control. It marginalised
other Kurdish parties through targeted violence, including assassinations.
“Our group of young people was formed in April 2011. We were able to protest
for several months without any repression from the régime. Doubtless, it had
the means. Then everything changed when the PYD arrived. Our funding was cut
off. Almost all of us were arrested and interrogated by the PYD. Some of us
were tortured. They told us to stop protesting.”
Under the deal, Syrian security forces no longer intervened in the three
Kurdish enclaves,. The army remained in its barracks until July 19th,
2012, when the FSA’s seizure of a large part of the north caused the régime to
withdraw from the Kurdish zones. The régime’s place was immediately taken by
the PYD.
This carefully planned transition was carried out in a day. PYD militants took
control of administrative buildings and positioned themselves as the official
authorities in the Kurdish enclave.
[pp167-169]
‘In the Kurdish territories, the setting up
of a coalition, the TEV-DEM (Tevgera Kurden Demokrat – Democratic Kurdish
Movement) allowed projecting a pluralistic image for the benefit of external
observers and the Syrian population. In reality, the PKK remained the true
authority behind the diverse activities of the individual TEV-DEM bodies. “No
one knows who holds power in the TEV-DEM,” a notable from Ayn al-Arab and cadre
of the KDPS(Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria) explained. “The PKK created
many fictional parties and associations to give it the appearance of a popular
movement. But the decisions are not made there. They do not ask our opinion. In
the same way, the PYD in Ayn al-Arab is a mere façade. It has a few poorly
educated members and they certainly weren’t behind the creation of such
organisations.” ‘
[pp169-170]
‘In October 2015, the Syrian Democratic
Forces (Hezen Suriya Demkratik, SDF) were set up. This organisation’s
conflicted character manifested itself
when the PKK’s cadres, with their Marxist-Leninist background, ordered the
Sunni Arab combatants to fight in the name of Öcalan (leader of the PKK) and of Allah at the
same time. Asx a Sunni Arab fighter in the SDF put it: “I joined for two
reasons. One, because our group of friends had no other alternative for
countering the Islamic State, and, second, fighting on the side of the PKK
meant fighting on the side of the Americans from then on.” ‘
[p176]
*********************************************
‘The common language in the Syrian
demonstrations was Islam, and its metapolitical nature let Islamist, secular
and leftist discourses coexist. During the peaceful stage, the historically
transgressive nature of Sunnism – the denomination of an overwhelming majority
of the population – against the Bashar al-Assad régime made Islam a legitimate
and effective language of protest. In the first demonstrations, (regardless of
political agenda), references to Islam included slogans (Allah Akbar), places
(mosques), and days of protest (Fridays). “I am not a practising Muslim, but
Islam has become a unifying element,” a revolutionary told us. Meanwhile, the
narratives of secular protesters, notably from the Marxist left and liberals,
failed to take root and, consequently, so did their political agenda.’
[Chapter 9, pp179-180]
‘The inclusive use of Islam was in phase with a feature of the Syrian
revolution’s initial stage: the rejection of political parties. Not only did
parties represent a threat to the unity of the revolutionary movement, they
also risked precipitating fitna (rifts in the community of believers).
Invisible in the protest movement, they also did not participate in the armed
struggle, in part because they had relatively few militants inside the country.
Thus the insurgents could chant “Syria is united and the Syrian people are
one.” “We are a united movement, we put our political differences aside,” as
the mayor of Aleppo explained to us.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Syrian branch, driven out in the 1980s, did not recruit
new members and initially made it official that it would hold off any
involvement in Syria until Bashar al-Assad had been overthrown. The Muslim
Brotherhood’s ideology, in fact, probably corresponded to the leanings of a
large portion of Sunni Muslim insurgents. On March 25th 2012, it
adopted a charter espousing a charter espousing a “pluralist democracy in which
all citizens would be equal, regardless of their race, religion, community or
[political] orientation.”
While talk of certain brigades being close to
the Muslim Brotherhood (Liwa’ al-Tawhed, for example) was not uncommon, members
of the former rejected the innuendo, revealing the extent to which displays of
party affiliation were still not acceptable in revolutionary circles.
[pp182-184]
‘In January 2013, Harakat Ahrar al-Sham
bal-Islamiyya was born of the fusion of various small Islamist groups that had
formed by early 2012. It gained footholds especially in the Homs, Damascus,
Latakia and Raqqa governorates and played a key role in seizing the city of
Raqqa.
Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya did not break with the other armed groups
that grew out of the peaceful demonstrations and fought alongside these fellow
insurgents. The movement agreed that defeating Bashar al-Assad before
determining the nature of the régime that would follow. It let the civil
institutions do their work and attended public meetings organised by Salim
Idriss, the head of the FSA. Increased US pressure on the Gulf States to stop
funding radical Islamist groups led Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya to sign
a covenant with other armed groups on May 17th 2014. Its stated
objectives were “the fall of the régime,” “territorial integrity.”
“revolutionary work,” and “the rejection of fundamentalism and radicalism.” The
group then explicitly positioned itself as a “moderate” actor between Jabhat
al-Nusra on the one hand and the rest of the Syrian insurgency in the north on
the other. In 2015 Ahrar al-Sham forced Jabhat al-Nusra to accept a civilian
administration in Idlib when it was taken.’
[pp184-186]
‘From its creation on January 24th
2012 to the split in March 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra li-Ahl al-Sham exemplified the
first strategic attempt to implant the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria. Jabhat
al-Nusra built its reputation on its military exploits, on fair treatment meted
out to the (Sunni) civilian population and on their fight against crime. The
movement served on the frontlines and attracted the most spirited fighters.
“The Jabha men’s courage is unparalleled,” related one fighter, “one time the
front line was pierced and, faced with the régime’s men, everyone fled. I was
stuck with two other fighters in a building. We were about to be killed when
two Jabha 4x4s counter-attacked, alone, and managed to extract us under fire.”
Despite the insurrection’s general military
inferiority, the Jabhat al-Nusra tactic of launching suicide attacks prior to
an assault created a breach in the régime’s forces and could give it a decisive
element of surprise. Only the Jabha plans suicide missions. Its combatants have
no fear. They are all ready for martyrdom and they fight to the death.” Thus,
when the US State Department listed Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist organisation
on December 11th 2012, most other armed groups and part of the
population in the insurgent areas pledged their solidarity to Jabhat al-Nusra. Indeed,
so as not to cut themselves off from the population, Jabhat al-Nusra proceeded
cautiously in some matters. Although Salafist, and therefore ideologically
opposed to the cult of saints and in favout of hudud (serious fixed punishments
in line with Sharia law), Jabhat al-Nusra deferred the application of these
matters pending the creation of an Islamic régime. A Jabhat al-Nusra emir thus
explained in January 2013 that Syrians were not ready to vandalise the tombs of
saints, these being pilgrimage sites.
Another Jabhat al-Nusra hallmark was that it systematically circumvented the insurgency’s institutions. In Aleppo, the insurrection’s judicial apparatus was in direct competition with the Jabhat al-Nusra judicial committee created late in 2012 with the support of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, Liwa’ Suqur al-Sham, and Liwa’ al-Tawhid. From the outset, it made secret arrests. “Since the Jabhat tribunal was created, its morality police have arrested revolutionaries. The trials take place behind closed doors, no one hears about them. At the beginning, there were rumours. Then some released prisoners have talked about incarceration. According to them, Jabhat is detaining dozens of people in its prisons.”
After the split with ISIL in March 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra kept hedging its
strategic bets by either building coalitions with the rest of the Syrian
insurgency or going all out for a takeover. In November 2013, it announced a
change of name - al-Qaida in the Levant
(al-Qaida fi Balad al-Sham) – to assert its legitimacy in the face of ISIL. In
August 2014, a video leaked of Abu Muhammad al-Julani describing to its
followers his project to set up an Islamic Emirate in Northern Syria. In
October 2014, in Jabal al-Zawiya, it also attacked FSA-related groups (the
Syrian Revolutionary Front and the Movement of Steadfastness).
Yet, under pressure from Turkey and the Gulf
countries, and with the Islamic State advancing in Northern Syria, in the
spring of 2015 Jabhat al-Nusra changed its strategy. In March, it entered into
a new coalition with Ahrar al-Sham and former FSA units, the Army of Conquest
(Jaysh al-Fatah), and compromised on sharing the administration of Idlib city.
In an interview in May 2015 with al-Jazeera, Abu Muhammad al-Julani declared,
“Nusra Front doesn’t have any plans or directives to target the West. We
received clear orders not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the US or
Europe in order to not sabotage the true mission against the régime. Maybe
al-Qaida does that, but not here in Syria.” Finally, in July 2016, faced with
military pressure by the régime and its allies, by the PYD and Islamic State in
northern Syria, the group officially broke off all ties with al-Qaida. It
changed its name and became the Front for Victory in the Levant, which
facilitated staging joint operations with other groups of the insurrection.
[pp186-191]
‘Before 2014, ISIL strategy was not directed
against the Damascus régime. The objective of the armed operations ISIL took
part in was to clear out the remaining government positions in northern Syria.
What ISIL was really after was gaining control over resources in the northern
rebel areas. Rather than seizing the border posts, it seized towns near them.
Within a few months, ISIL was capable of choking off FSA supplies from Turkey.
Throughout 2013, ISIL’s strategy led to
regular clashes with FSA brigades. It directly attacked FSA groups, but in a
way to keep them from forming a common front.
After 2014, ISIL’s break with the insurgency
was unmistakable. In January 2014, the necessity of the FSA groups securing
their supplies of men, arms, and money from Turkey led to open conflict. Jabhat
al-Nusra and the Islamic Front were forced to take sides and took up the fight
against ISIL. After a month of fighting in northeastern Syria, the fronts
stabilised. ISIL withdrew from Idlib province and the surrounding areas of
Aleppo, but tightened its control over the east, including in the provinces of
Raqqa and Hasaka, where it had mostly driven out other armed groups.’
[pp192-194]
‘When the Islamic State captured Palmyra in 2015 and the insurgency took
Kessab, Idlib and Jisr al-Shugur in the north and the Quneitra corridor, these
setbacks laid bare the Syrian army’s steady disintegration. The régime survived
thanks to its militias and the increased presence of Hezbollah and the Iranian
Pasdaran, who relied on a strategy of massive indiscriminate shelling of areas
held by the insurgency. Russia’s intervention in September 2015 marked a
turning point in the war. The Russian air force concentrated its bombing
campaign on the insurgents, allowing the régime to retake Homs in December
2015, to launch an offensive against Aleppo in January 2016, and to retake
Palmyra in March 2016. In coordination with the Kurdish PYD, the régime cut the
road between A|leppo and Turkey in July 2016 and besieged Aleppo’s eastern
neighbourhoods. The insurgency’s offensive in the summer and fall of 2016
failed to break the siege of Aleppo whose defences crumbled in late November.’
[p198]
*********************************************
‘During the early peaceful demonstrations,
women did participate in marches and revolutionary groups Samia took part
surreptitiously in the first demonstrations in March 2011, “For me, taking to
the streets was very important, but I could not demonstrate. On one hand, there
was the repression of the régime, but also because my family would have
forbidden me to go there.” The conflict’s militarisation curbed participation
by women in the public sphere, because women were barred from taking dominant
roles, especially fighting ones. Still, the absence of men (casualties of war,
away fighting on the frontlines, or living abroad) transformed many women’s
lives. For some women from conservative families, it was their first time
working outside the home.
When Adiba decided to stay behind to provide
shelter to FSA fighters on the eve of the battle of Aleppo in July 2012,
instead of moving with her husband and her family to west Aleppo, she went
against their wishes. “I believed in the revolution and I did not want to
leave. My family threatened me, but I did not give in. This decision to stay
changed my life.” ‘
[Chapter 11, p236]
*********************************************
‘While in 2010 Syrian debt had amounted to
only 23% of GDP, by the end of 2013 it had risen to 126% and continued to grow.
Without aid from Russia and Iran, the régime would have faced collapse. The
Syrian state lost revenues derived from hydrocarbon exports, customs duties and
taxation. While revenues were reduced by three-quarters, spending had doubled.
The régime imported nearly $500 million worth of oil each month and increasing
spending on the military added another $8 billion to its deficit between 2011 and
the end of 2013. To avoid total currency collapse, the Central Bank of Syria
depended largely on Russian subsidies. Iran also lent the régime money: In
2013, it provided $3.6 billion for the purchase of petroleum products and subsequently
disbursed a second loan of $1 billion to the régime. Between 2011 and January
2014, Iran reportedly sent aid worth more than $15 billion to Syria. Iran,
Hezbollah, and Iraq also sent in-kind aid in the form of combatants and
weapons. In addition, the UN – and, therefore, Western donors – indirectly
subsidised the régime. Humanitarian aid to Syria had to pass through Damascus
until July 2014 because the Russians vetoed any resolutions allowing aid to
reach insurgent areas from neighbouring countries. The régime thus controlled
the bulk of humanitarian aid and distributed it according to a political
calculus.’
[Chapter 12, pp252-254]
