Now Lebanon
13/07/2014

The Syrian revolution since the caliphate
By Fidaa Itani

A fragmented Syrian opposition is losing ground to Islamic extremism

Judge Hussein Hamadeh posted the following on his Facebook page: “Yes, it is a crossroads… Either Syria or drowning.” Hamadeh is one of the most prominent constitutional judges to defect in Syria and has lost everything in the conflict except the hope that military forces might rally around one political vision alongside opposition parties both domestically and abroad.

Yet this seems all but impossible as the Syrian reality is fractured, all diseases are out in the open, and the rule of the jungle prevails. Military power is now the law regardless of the social and cultural fabric of the Syrian people.

The greatest threat facing the liberated regions of Syria is not the expansion of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, though now simply the IS) following the declaration of a caliphate and the rise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Mosul, or the Syrian regime regaining control over vast swathes of territory in the North, especially in the governorate of Aleppo. It is also not the fall of Aleppo’s industrial city and the seat of the Municipal Council of the Aleppo Governorate, which is loyal to the opposition coalition, at the hands of the Bashar al-Assad’s army. The greatest threat to Syria is the warlords begging for foreign aid and their reckless governance and fighting.

The end of revolution romanticism

The revolution became militarized, lost its peaceful nature, and was pushed towards Islamization. Field commanders have run toward a violent brand of Islam with astonishing naïveté. The revolution has fallen into the trap of Islamization much as Aleppo’s brigade commanders have fallen into the trap of the city and the difficulties of defending it.

Today, even though Jabhat al-Nusra is becoming the most bankrupt of forces, and potentially the smallest ISIS brigade, there are still those among the fighting forces who defend it, reminding one of the extraordinary simplicity with which “We Are All Jabhat al-Nusra” Friday was declared.

The revolution became Islamized and was unable to defend various areas in the face of ISIS ferocity. It then became an uprising financed by the Americans and Saudis against ISIS in Idlib and Aleppo’s northwestern countryside, coinciding with the Geneva II Conference. For a time, the uprising kept the ISIS specter at bay. But some opposition forces did not read these transformations accurately or take the time to derive the right lessons. Others came to think of the deplorable actions of so many scattered factions, turning from revolutionary forces into marginal fighting emirates and evolving the conflict into a deadlier brand of Islam, as nothing but “mistakes in the revolution” rather than structural deformities requiring urgent and sophisticated correction.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of families are forced to move from one region to another every time the regime air force decides to bombard a certain group of villages. Tens of thousands of families have become dependent upon relief packages bearing the flags of the countries squabbling over the means by which to exploit the revolution.

Romanticism and failure

Local commanders have a bad reputation. Most of them have taken to stealing under the pretext of financing the revolution, and most of them could stand trial before a military court on charges of war crimes with the certainty of being convicted. A vast majority of these commanders are virtually uneducated. Even worse, they enlist religious scholars for help. Typically, these scholars have studied sharia law sporadically at best. Those suspected of secularism are automatically cast out and socially isolated until they leave.

Very few educated people remain in the northern liberated regions of Syria. Those the regime hasn’t killed, arrested or allowed to leave have been excluded by faction commanders and accused of prior allegiance to the regime and of dissenting too late. The intelligentsia has been scattered into exile, leaving the land of the revolution to people unable to realize the danger of their actions.

Those who were defiant and tried to remain at any cost, even if that meant staying home, were found by ISIS and eliminated. Those who stayed to lead the fighting in Syria’s northern regions seem to be divided into two categories: those who know there is no way out of the country and are currently enjoying power and money on the domestic front, and those who still romantically believe that an Islamic state should be established in the regions under their control.

Both categories welcome the support they are getting from the CIA, and consider anything they can get their hands on to be a gain, no matter who it comes from. But both categories also fear US demands, and there is a prevailing belief that it is possible to obtain a high level of support without having to deal with any of the players providing that support.

Weak leaders and dying fighters

Forty-nine conscripts from one fighting faction underwent 40 days of intensive training at a US base in the Arab region. They astonished their trainers with their capacity to assimilate primary military tactics and implement attack plans. By the time they arrived back in Syria, however, regime forces had taken control of the Sheikh Najjar area and surrounding villages.

The Syrian army’s progress came as no surprise, as it had already entered the areas behind the Sheikh Najjar area while en route to break the siege on the central prison. The fait accompli forces, which took over the revolution in and around Aleppo, did nothing to counter them. They had grown so weak that it was no longer strange for them to allow Syrian regime forces to take huge swathes of land from behind and not bother ISIS in the eastern countryside and some northern Syrian regions.

The industrial city, which spreads over more than 40 hectares, fell in one day, and opposition forces were incapable of any serious reaction. The commander of one armed faction could be heard yelling at his officers at the faction’s headquarters, but it was about the salaries that had arrived from the operations center. Discussion of the Sheikh Najjar region was of only marginal importance compared to financial meetings.

Each faction has criticized the others for failing to confront the regime troops seriously, and has expressed concern about moving away from their centers of influence or the native regions of their commanders, accusing other factions of planning to leave them to fend for themselves should a confrontation break out.

I asked one Egyptian military commander operating with a local faction about the lack of reaction to the regime’s progress. The aging man, renowned for his allegiance to Al-Qaeda, spoke dismissively about the scattering of forces in the north for fear that ISIS would deploy again in Aleppo and Idlib. But there was another paradox: a village about two kilometers away from the headquarters of this Egyptian commander was now home to 50 ISIS fighters and emirs who had married local women. The local population had banned anyone from harming these new in-laws not only because they had quit fighting, but also because they preferred ISIS to local forces.

The same holds true for several villages in the countryside around Aleppo and Idlib. In Kfar Hamra, for instance, the local population is waiting for ISIS to return, This is also true of Al-Dana, where dozens of ISIS fighters are serving under Jabhat al-Nusra, and even more so in the city of Aazaz, whose inhabitants are opposed to the return of Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigades, whose administration was an authoritarian extortion racket. There are numerous examples of villages preferring ISIS to reconciling with neighboring villages.

One mentality

A military commander stands in the midst of a group of recruits, saying: “He who does not pray is not needed here – let him go home.” The recruits look at the man, now a top commander, though not yet 30. More than ten of them are under 16 years of age.

Far more effort goes into religious lessons for these young men than physical training. The young commander has a zero-tolerance policy for fighters overlooking their religious obligations. His organization employs 150 people for checkpoints, the majority of whom are over 40 and used family and village ties to get their jobs.

We drove by one of these checkpoints near the village of Aanjara with a local commander. Puling up, the car headlights exposed four militants sitting in the middle of the road smoking shisha after dinner. They hadn’t even gotten around to cleaning up their meal. The commander was apoplectic. Three of the men remained seated with their shisha while the man at the checkpoint merely said that it was not his turn to stand guard, explaining that his colleague had gone away on urgent business. The guard apologized to the field commander, saying: “Sheikh, I only came as X’s replacement.” When we left, the commander’s friend said: “I wish he had asked what gives you the right to scold him.”

The problem was not simply the unscrupulousness of the guards, but the fact that they didn’t seem to object to being scolded by anyone who happened by. But no one cares about similar signs of neglect. Most watch stations and checkpoints are places for sleep and leisure for middle-aged men in search of comfortable jobs. A failure to fast or pray, on the other hand, would be a big problem, as would expressing one’s political opinion or debating religious and sectarian differences.

On one hand, I can attest to the fact that I have never prayed or fasted in the company of rebels. Then again, they have accepted me in my capacity as a foreign visitor. On the other hand, I asked the commander of a major faction during a friendly conversation whether the time had not come for him to trim his beard and fly the revolution flag over his faction’s positions, especially since the CIA had labeled it a moderate opposition group and overlooked the fact that it was not affiliated with the FSA. The man, who enjoyed absolute prerogatives over his company, answered that his people would reject him if he were to touch his beard or hoist the revolution flag.

He admitted to warning some of his officers against being overly nationalistic and urging them to preserve their Islamic distinction out of fear of their fellow faction members.