WWhen Islamist militants raided his home in the town of Aleppo a little over a week ago, Rama Alhalabi sheltered inside a safe house as he overshadowed his fear. The loyal forces of the president Bashar al-Assadthey suddenly descended from the city, who could do nothing to strengthen the inhabitants. But when he pushed the southern insurgency, quickly occupying the city of Hama on his way to Damascus, Alhalabi’s fear of life under military rule gradually subsided. Rather, he was replaced by fears that his friends in the army would be abandoned by their commanders as the Assad regime loses its grip.
“People in” Aleppo We feel more comfortable now that we are further away from the areas under regime control,” the 29-year-old said, while still using a pseudonym in fear that Assad could take back the city.
“At the same time, I have many friends serving in the army and I do not want to harm them. The people with power within the government will protect themselves, and leave the poor fighters who are forced to face the army alone to face a horrible fate.
“Things changed crazy fast,” he added. “We can’t believe what’s happening.”
Armed militants of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group are clustered outside the city of Homs, and rebel forces said they had entered the city’s sprawling southern suburbs in a swift change across the border. of Syria. The Syrian army has “replenished” its forces in two provinces south of Damascus in harsh new retreats, the news announced, days after they retreated from Hama. In less than a week, five provincial capitals across the country were suddenly no longer under Assad’s control.
“We can hear the next bombing, and we are praying, hoping – and waiting,” said Um Ahmad, an elderly man from Homs, who was staying at home with his husband as the battle neared was quite audible.
Assad’s loyalists have fled the city, while people who have only two hours of electricity left for one day and what goods are left in the shops are immoderate. Residents in Homs were waiting to see if this was the end of the Assad regime, while a rebel commander told his regime forces inside the city that this was their “last chance to defect before it’s too late.”
Um Ahmad was consumed with one thought, that he would finally be able to see his children after a decade of separation and exile. “Most people are scared but they fear the regime’s revenge more than anything,” he said, as Russian and Syrian airstrikes hit the countryside around Homs and Hama.
When popular uprisings swept cities across Syria in 2011, demanding the departure of Assad, it initially looked as if the demonstrations might topple another regional autocrat. But the leader of Syria quickly turned the arms of the state against his own people to crush the dissent. As the unrest slowly spiraled into civil war, Assad released jihadist prisoners from fear-mongering to turn the insurgent forces against him, before relying heavily on his allies in Russia and Iran, the military muscle used to restore power.
Civil war he was killed more than 300,000 people fought over 10 years, with some estimates putting the true toll at double that number. Ten thousand remain, among the 100,000 they believed missing or forcibly disappeared in Assad’s prisons since 2011, and under the supervision of the United Nations we have described as systematic weapons. Over 12 million people were kidnapped.
Assad has held control of Syria’s major cities for years, as the country’s long-running war has hardened. hts mountainous pocket commanded the choir, shut off from the exteriors. Assad’s group appeared to be a dark threat until they suddenly brought out the offensive who saw them taking control of Aleppo within days.
A few days later, the rebels first entered Syria’s second city, the leader of HTS, who was identified as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani The footsteps of the old citadel were surrounded by panic-stricken crowds. Jolani still retains a $10,000 bounty on his head from Washington because of his former group’s links to al-Qaida, but his public appearances and direct communication with his followers have made him a figure of rebellion. Meanwhile, Assad was largely absent, except for pictures of the smiling Syrian president sitting next to the Iranian foreign minister in Damascus. In a statement, the Syrian president denied that Assad had fled the country or made any sudden pilgrimages, insisting that he was “fulfilling his nation and constitution” in Damascus.
“Assad is facing an important moment of reason… yet he is lacking in action in this big moment with the future of his regime on the line,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
What we have seen is not only an earthquake, but a political one, for Syria and its allied countries. This was unthinkable a year ago. Whatever happens in the days, weeks and months, I doubt that Assad can remain in power in Syria.
“Even though things are amazing, I really don’t appreciate the extent to which Syria’s state capacity has been degraded,” he said. “The army is disturbed, I die of hunger.”
Assad’s safety appeared to be expected as ambassadors from Turkey, Russia and Iran gathered in Doha to discuss a last-ditch political solution. While both Moscow and Tehran are trying to help Assad as he vows to counter-attack, there have been few signs that their support has reached the levels that Syrian forces have previously struggled to regain control of.
Gerges pointed out that the president of Syria, who has been in charge for almost 20 years, has yet to address his troops or citizens amid the biggest challenge to his country’s power in years.
“He doesn’t understand the gravity of this time,” he said. “Not only for the life and safety of their supporters, who were engaged in the battle, they were terrified, but also the soldiers who were left behind.”
In Daraa and Suwayda, south of the capital, residents are burning effigies of Assad on the streets. In Hama, the city where Assad’s father, Hafez, violently crushed an Islamist rebellion against him in 1982, a group of people defaced a statue of the former president and dragged his head through the streets behind a truck, his face riddled with bullet holes.
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“No one in Hama can think about the future right now, but they are determined that whatever happens, it will undoubtedly be better than living under the Syrian regime that they have experienced for decades,” said Mohamad Alskaf of the Syrian Network for Human Rights. from Hama
He who watched with joy, he said, as if the means of opposition showed that the rebels, having opened the doors of the prisons, entered each city, allowing them; Detainees kept in dark public detention facilities are free to walk for the first time in years. “These special topics about Hama, like something out of a movie,” he said.
Adam, a former protest leader exiled from Damascus, who asked his family to withhold his name, also said he was happy to see the release of pictures of political prisoners, but feared what Assad would do to hold power as the rebels head on. When the Syrian president unleashed the deadly sarin agent against rebel forces in the suburbs of Damascus in 2013, Adam recalled that an attack six miles from him was carried out by the president’s palace.
“This government is like no other,” he said. “They would rather leave the country in the ground than to leave it. It is land or no land. For I think that they will attack themselves in Damascus, and try to stay, waiting for him, for years, to pay the price of the pagans.
Those in Aleppo and Hama are uncertain about a new life without Assad, but have been pushed under HTS rule. Alhalabi, a member of Aleppo’s Christian community, said he was initially afraid of attacks by the militia. But, he said, he had surprised her last week, and the elders of the local church had asked their congregations to confirm that he would remain unharmed.
Ubayda Arnaout, a spokesman for the political arm of HTS’ nominal Salvation Army, said the fighters had withdrawn from Aleppo and surrendered to civilian authorities, who were to provide security and basic services. It remains premature, he says, to discuss how they will control Aleppo by fighting elsewhere.
However, he added that their authority “in its current form does not govern the newly liberated areas. Aleph is governed by its inhabitants.
Alhalabi was confident enough to leave his home the day after the rebels took control, despite fearing airstrikes targeting the city. But when he drove his relatives to visit another relative at work near the hospital, a hand of fighters gathered outside as he approached, blindfolded by Alhalabi and his passengers. He stripped – and drove back.
“They were kind. They asked me if I wanted to park at the hospital,” he said.
His fear began to dissipate, and he wanted desperately to believe that his rule would remain benign. Shops had begun to reopen, although prices had spiked, and Alhalabi returned to his usual local coffee shop.
The soldiers are scary enough, he said. “But now I see that they are not harming anyone, and approaching them reverently. We thought they would treat us badly,” he added. But they did not frighten us at all. They were very nice- they gave people free bread. “