Kafranbel, town at the heart of a revolution, falls to Assad

The Syrian town of Kafranbel was long a symbol of humorous defiance to Damascus, famed for its witty posters, murals and cartoons, so its recapture by regime forces was a heavy blow, activists said.

Kafranbel this week became the latest town to be seized in a blistering government onslaught against the last rebel bastion in north-west Syria.

The town in Idlib province near Turkey was one of the first to join the revolutionary fervour that swept Syria in 2011.

Ibrahim Sweid, 31, said he was at the first protest in Kafranbel in April 2011, only weeks after the uprising against President Bashar Al Assad’s regime began. The town was once “the icon of the revolution, its resounding lute, the spark of the uprising in the Syrian north”, he said. “Our aim was first and foremost to bring down Assad’s regime.”

Mr Sweid was among activists who set up the town’s media office to document protests and then the bombardment as the country slid into civil war. Today, its members are long gone – displaced, in exile or dead.

Among those lost are Raed Fares, a charismatic cartoonist and radio host who was killed by unknown gunmen in 2018.

He and others had made the town famous for the sardonic slogans and giant political cartoons they held up in Arabic and English at the town’s demonstrations.

Mr Sweid, his wife and three children fled 10 months ago but he returned from time to time, watching the town slowly reduced to rubble as he worked for a local television channel.

Only last Tuesday, he crouched on its outskirts, watching helplessly from afar as the missiles rained down.

“I left the area when I was sure it had fallen to the enemy. I looked at it one last time and left at 1am,” he said. “After nine years of revolution, Kafranbel was occupied – a town that had managed to give a voice to Syrians worldwide with its cartoons and signs.”

In 2012, Kafranbel was rocked by fighting between regime fighters and defectors from

Mr Al Assad’s army, before it slipped from government control. Mr Sweid said he remembers filming the joy of residents – including the late Raed Fares – that summer.

“But now Raed’s dead and so is Kafranbel,” he said.

A town of about 20,000 people, Kafranbel stood out among its neighbours for its creative approach to activism.

“I have a dream. Let freedom ring from Kafranbel,” read one sign in 2012 in English, playing on the town’s name and echoing the words of Martin Luther King. A poster the same year complained of congested skies, and demanded that policemen regulate the traffic of the warplanes overhead.

By 2015, Kafranbel was part of a large region under the control of opposition forces. Two years later, it was overrun by militants from Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate.

Fares said at the time that he founded Fresh FM in 2013 to counter “fundamentalist narratives” in Idlib. After that, he was repeatedly targeted by armed groups. When extremists tried to ban music, the activist responded by broadcasting the sound of clucking chickens.

A first wave of residents fled the town last year, while others held out before joining the exodus over the past few months.

Bilal Bayush, 27, said Kafranbel had become uninhabitable over the past two months.

“For every event in Kafranbel, you’d see a cartoon on the walls of Kafranbel, a sign at its protests,” he said. “We use to sing and laugh for the revolution ... it all ended with Kafranbel.”

A town of about 20,000 people, Kafranbel stood out among its neighbours for its creative approach to activism