Syrian rebel fighters bide their time
Equipped to stage only guerrilla attacks against the army, they dream of outside help.
The rebels sleep on thin mattresses with AK-47S and handguns by their sides. Their rented apartment has the feel of college dorm meets military barracks — crumpled cigarette packs, old coffee cups, gun magazines and an incongruously feminine touch: plastic sunflowers rimming the doorways.
With cellphone coverage blocked by the government, they spend their days meeting at safe houses like this one to strategize. Before the topic of war comes a crucial question. How do you take your coffee?
Here in Syria’s Idlib province, a key opposition region in the almost yearlong uprising against the rule of President Bashar Assad, matters of revolution must wait for Arab hospitality.
“So that if we die as martyrs, we die with a full stomach,” rebel Mustafa Saeed said as he waited for lunch to be served.
Despite the urgency of their armed resistance and the rising death toll across the country, rebels here aren’t rushing into battle against an army with far superior weapons and organization. Rather, they bide their time, staging guerrilla
attacks and planning for the insurgency they want to fight, not the one they are equipped for now.
Rebels hope they’ll soon see an influx of cash for weapons from the wealthy Persian Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both now openly dedicated to Assad’s overthrow. At a recent international summit, the Saudi foreign minister said arming the rebels was an “excellent idea.”
But for now the resistance remains in a nascent stage, and even the name Free Syrian Army belies the reality of loosely organized militias consisting mostly of local fighters, who know the region’s complex terrain, and some defecting soldiers, who have the military knowhow.
They have little capability for open clashes with the army or security forces, and much of their offensive tactics consist of attacking checkpoints or military transport vehicles to take weapons and hostages, as well as to undermine the government’s hold on the country.
Even “liberated” areas can slip away if the military decides to move in with a few tanks. Commanders acknowledge the inability to hold any place for more than a day or two once the military returns in strength.
Rebels who are armed — many are still not — almost universally carry AK-47 assault rifles, most bought on the black market or seized from the military. A few have rocket-propelled grenades. But the paucity of heavy munitions, antitank and antiaircraft weaponry in particular, is their great lament.
“There isn’t enough ammunition,” said Ahmad Zidan, nom de guerre of one of the Idlib leaders on the Supreme Council for the Leadership of the Syrian Revolution. “If we had the ammunition it would be over quickly.”
One bald man in a traditional robe said, “If we don’t get weapons and money, then pssh ...” He brushed his hands together to indicate they would be finished. Syria’s Benghazi
Rebels here envision this region as their country’s Benghazi, the eastern Libyan breakaway enclave shielded by a Western-enforced no-fly zone that served as a political and strategic capital for insurgents fighting Moammar Kadafi.
“We want to base here and then move our forces forward, rather than have each area fighting on its own,” said Zidan, 37, a father of four who worked as a general contractor for years in Kuwait. “He who wants to defect, flee to here; he who wants to fight, come here.”
Idlib is ideally positioned to become Syria’s Benghazi. As in the Libyan city, the revolution has tapped into deep resentment of an impoverished region that residents say has been snubbed by the government for decades. The rocky, mountainous terrain lends itself well to hitand-run operations, and its proximity to rebel-friendly Turkey, from which there are long-established smuggling routes, offers the potential for foreign powers supplying the rebels.
As the rebels wait for an infusion of aid, weapons trickle in from all directions, including Turkey and Lebanon.
It’s a risky endeavor. One university student in Aleppo, Abdulrahman, transported small amounts at a time — two magazine clips or two rifles — from the city into the countryside, after buying the items from a weapons merchant.
On his last trip, he was hiding two rifles in a suitcase full of clothes when he was stopped and searched at a recently erected checkpoint. He and his brother, who was traveling with him, were arrested and are still in detention, rebels say.
But insurgent command-
ers say most of their weapons come from the very army they’re fighting, either seized or purchased in a thriving illicit trade. Intermediaries such as a merchant known as Abu Hussein arrange arms deals between the two sides.
Abu Hussein described how the rebels will shoot a few times at a government checkpoint, giving soldiers the cover to fire off their weapons. If the troops expend 200 bullets, Abu Hussein said, they may tell their superiors that 400 bullets were fired. The remaining 200 bullets will be sold to the rebels, typically for 150 Syrian pounds (about $2.50) per bullet. Shot in both legs
Throughout the province, living rooms and entire homes have been transformed into crash pads and meeting spots for the fighters, who live within the boundaries of liberated neighborhoods or villages and move carefully along roads clear of military checkpoints.
It hasn’t been safe for Abu Rami, 39 and a father of four, to go home since August, when the military entered his city. Before the uprising, he ran a car accessories shop but now is one of three civilian men who helps oversee the Martyrs of Maarat Numan militia, which he says is 400 strong, including about 50 defectors.
Three months ago, he was shot in both legs during an army attack in the suburbs of the city and was bedridden for two months. He now walks with a slight limp.
Abu Rami, who, like others, wanted to be known by a partial name or nickname, is a quiet man with gentle eyes. On this day he was dressed in a black sweat suit that matched his black hair and beard with flecks of white. As he sat sipping coffee, a newly defected army captain, a Kurdish Sunni Muslim, sat nearby.
“We [rebels] know the lay of the ground, but the defectors give us political credibility,” he said. “It’s going to become organized like the real army.” Their horror
The deserters describe their horror over what the government was asking them to do.
“We would get sent out with 600 bullets and we were warned against coming back with any bullets,” said Ahmad, who was stationed in the battleground city of Homs and spoke while protecting an antigovernment protest. “Some would shoot into the air and some of us would bury the bullets in the dirt below our feet so we would come back emptyhanded.”
Soldiers who watched TV channels other than state media were imprisoned for more than two weeks, said Ahmad, who, like others, concealed his face with a black scarf and wore an ammo vest over a leather bomber jacket.
Last spring, Ahmad said, he was stationed in southern Dara province, where the rebellion broke out in March. He participated in raids on the homes of wanted “terrorists,” he says. At one residence, Ahmad recalled, an officer fired 30 bullets through a shut door. When troops stormed the room, Ahmad said, they found a woman who had been hiding. She was dead.
“Should I stay and shoot at my people?” asked Ahmad, who is married with a young daughter. “Better a bullet hits me.”
In July, he said, he paid an officer a bribe of about $50 to let him go see his family for a day. He never went back. Power vacuum
In the vacuum of authority left by the uprising, the rebels have rushed in to keep order and avoid chaos. But that has left some intimidated and fearing vigilante justice.
Both sides are marking their territories with more checkpoints on the main highways and even ramshackle roads that connect the villages.
At opposition checkpoints, rebels sometimes insist that people curse Assad, said Reem, a college student.
“If it’s the security forces, I say I’m with the regime, and if it’s the revolutionaries, I say I’m against,” she said. “But sometimes you don’t know.”
Police officers no longer travel on highways with their work IDS for fear of being searched at rebel checkpoints and kidnapped. Though most have not been involved in the government’s violent crackdown, many rebels regard them as complicit in an oppressive regime.
The other day, Abu Rami was driving through Maarat Numan in a white SUV that had been stolen while being transported on a highway. He spotted a scruffy young man selling gasoline beside the road. For months, gas and diesel have been in short supply.
“How much?” Abu Rami asked. Seventy Syrian pounds a liter, the man told him, at least 10 pounds more than the average price.
“Why 70? I swear that’s a travesty,” said Abu Fawz, a 29-year-old father of two who used to sell medical equipment before joining the rebels. “The people are sitting without work.”
Another rebel in the back seat, a loud, chatty, unarmed young man, pretended to reach for one of the AK-47S in the SUV: “If I catch you selling for 70 again I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”
The gasoline seller looked both confused and scared.
After a few minutes of harassment they drove off. Their warning had been delivered.