' “It was a very confusing few moments. We were in battle and in direct confrontation when a family suddenly emerged from the buildings, fleeing from the horror of what was happening,” said Iyad al-Mohammad, the leader of one of the fighter units operating in the western Assad Suburb in Aleppo city during the battle to gain control of the area on 28 October.
Al-Mohammad explained, “It was a battle within a battle. How could I fight the Assad forces and at the same time protect this family from danger? I remembered at the time the strict orders we had received to protect civilians, even at the expense of achieving our military objective. So I asked two members to provide cover on the street between us and the family and I signaled to the family to run in our direction. Despite this, they were targeted by the regime mercenaries, but thank God they arrived to where we were safe and sound.”
The family was placed in an evacuation car, prepared for such cases, which took them to a safe place far from the battle zone.
Al-Mohammad, a fighter in his twenties, said, “It was difficult, but it strengthens our sense of humanity to protect the families of those you are fighting. Assad Suburb has many residents who are fighting in Assad forces and among his Shabiha but the families are certainly not guilty and it is our duty to help and protect them.”
What is shocking, according to al-Mohammad, is that Assad’s warplanes and his artillery bomb the suburb that houses his fighters’ families. He said, “It shows the degree of Assad’s brutality even in dealing with the families of his own fighters… This is their nature, they do not care about any civilian even if the civilian supports the regime.”
Abu Yousef al-Muhajir, the military spokesperson for Ahrar al-Sham Movement, said to Enab Baladi that the military command of Jaish al-Fatah issued strict orders regarding how fighters deal with civilians in liberated areas . Fighters were ordered to evacuate civilians immediately from the areas of fighting and to treat them respectfully and humanely during their evacuation.
Abu Yousef added that the area did not have any civilian vehicles to help evacuate the residents, so the opposition fighters were forced to use military vehicles to evacuate the civilians immediately as the fighting was intense and there was heavy aerial bombardment during the evacuation operation.
One of the citizens leaving the Suburb, who refused to disclose his name, spoke to Enab Baladi about the reasons behind them remaining in the area despite the military operations. He said that the Assad forces had prevented them from leaving the suburb and gave them guarantees that the area was safe and that opposition fighters could not reach the area.
“But the exact opposite happened. In less than an hour, the Assad forces had fled the area and left us to face the unknown and we were truly afraid”, he said. “They told us the fighters were slaughtering civilians and killing them in cold blood, and that they were there to protect us. Thank God these were all lies. The fighters of Jaish al-Fatah helped us, they secured the roads inside the Suburb and evacuated us in cars to areas far from the confrontations, and now we are safe.”
Jaish al-Fatah entering populated areas is considered a new event in Aleppo city, which has forced the group to change how it deals with these areas to ensure that no civilians are harmed. Perhaps what happened in Assad Suburb is evidence of the high standards of fighters in dealing with such cases.'
'Syria's government says people who fled rebel zones that have since been retaken by the military are now welcome to return. But that's not how it worked out for one refugee family that came to check out the state of their home: They found another family had moved in.
That's just one of many hurdles keeping away those displaced in Syria's war.
Many who fled say they fear arrest if they return to homes now under government control or that their sons will be conscripted into the same military that once bombarded their towns. In other former opposition strongholds, the state is carrying out redevelopment projects that have razed thousands of homes.
The opposition accuses the government of President Bashar Assad of using under-the-radar methods to discourage populations it sees as disloyal from returning, changing the demographics to help consolidate control over a corridor running from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.
For example, a string of rebel, mainly Sunni Muslim suburbs around Damascus have come under military control. They were drained of much of their population as hundreds of thousands fled siege and bombardment in recent years. Now thousands more are leaving because of government control. It is an open question whether they will ever return.
In Aleppo, Syria's largest city, government forces are besieging the rebel eastern districts, and the estimated 275,000 residents have refused calls to evacuate, in part because many are convinced they'll never be allowed back.
The fact that most of the people from rebel areas are Sunni Muslims adds a toxic sectarian aspect to the charges of demographic manipulation. Sunni Muslims are the majority in Syria and make up the backbone of the rebellion.
Homs, Syria's third largest city, offers an indication of the hurdles for would-be returnees. In 2014, Homs' last major rebel neighborhoods, centered in its Old City, surrendered. That came after a long brutal siege that drove an estimated 300,000 from the city. Two years later, the government says the Old City is open for residents, but even official statistics say only 40 percent have returned. That figure is impossible to independently confirm, and the opposition believes it is inflated. On a visit to the Old City of Homs earlier this year, an AP team found a ghost town. More recently, AP interviewed six families expelled from Homs' old quarters, and only one could point to a relative, among hundreds, who has returned. All those interviewed spoke on condition they only be identified by their first names for fear of reprisals by the government.
"The families of the old city are still in exile. Today, you'll find them all over the world, except in their neighborhoods," said Abou Zeid, from the George Chiyah neighborhood.
Hoda, now living in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, said she was told she had to pay overdue bills before she could see her Homs home. But she, like others, is deeply hesitant to approach state institutions to do so or validate her property records because it means crossing through multiple checkpoints run by the feared security services.
The displaced fear security forces will detain their husbands and sons for trumped-up crimes or conscript them into Assad's military.
"We are not able to go back," said Rabaa, who fled to Lebanon with her family in 2012. She has a 20-year-old son. "The first thing they'll do is take him to the military," she said. "Go see our home? No way."
Conscription fears are also driving residents out of former opposition strongholds. The government denies that conscription is a tactic to push dissidents out, saying it a national duty.
"It's a law that dates back to the establishment of the Syrian state," said Ali Haidar, the national reconciliation minister. He said the military is exploring ways around the predicament. For example, in some recaptured areas, the government has offered to postpone conscripts' deployments for six months to a year.
But many deserters and draft-dodgers view this as simply a government tactic to give them a deadline to leave.
"The implication is that ... in these six months you get everything in order and flee, (and the military) will look the other way," said Dani Qappani, an opposition activist.
In the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh, for example, a third of the population of 50,000 fled during the government siege. After the suburb surrendered in September, some 10,000 more are likely to leave over the coming months for fear of conscription, said Bassma Kodmani, an opposition official.
Similarly, some 13,000 will probably leave the Damascus suburb of Qudsaya along with their families to avoid conscription, said a former fighter in Qudsaya. When the suburb of Daraya fell in August, all its last remaining residents — around 2,700 from an original 250,00 — were removed and put in camps, raising an outcry from U.N. officials over the possibility of a forced displacement. The government says they will eventually be allowed back. But Daraya could see the sort of urban renewal projects that observers say are also a tool for demographic engineering.
A 2014 report by Human Rights Watch identified seven opposition neighborhoods around the country razed by government authorities for "redevelopment." It accused authorities of carrying out collective punishment.
Presidential Decree 66, issued in 2012, lists a number of areas, mostly opposition, for urban renewal projects involving demolishing shantytowns.
"It serves another purpose: to punish the unruly areas, so you pacify them, and you change the demographic," said Rashad al-Kattan, a political analyst affiliated with the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland.'
