Syrian Rebel Infighting Undermines Anti-Assad Effort
By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAAD
Published: July 12, 2013 -- The New York Times
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Competing rebel factions in Syria are increasingly
attacking each other in a series of killings, kidnappings and
beheadings, undermining the already struggling effort to topple
President Bashar al-Assad.
Multimedia
The open hostilities could no longer be contained Friday, when a
Western-aligned group, the Free Syrian Army, demanded that a
Qaeda-linked rebel faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, turn
over the suspected killers of a prominent commander who was shot dead on
Thursday. Commanders with the Free Syrian Army warned that the broader
movement against Mr. Assad was being threatened by the conflict between
itself and the Islamic State.
The infighting is a new low for an opposition that was never able to
unite its military or civilian operations. Across the expanse of the
battlefield in Syria, in places like the northeastern province of Raqqa
and the divided city of Aleppo, rebels are attacking each other and
their supporters with regularity and ferocity. Competition for recruits
and weapons — and the right to define the character of the future state —
has fueled the interrebel battles.
“The Islamic State wants to eliminate the Free Syrian Army higher
command,” Ahmed Farzat, a Free Syrian Army lieutenant, said in an
interview on Skype from the central city of Homs, where rebels are
struggling against a fierce government assault. “In other words, to
marginalize it and replace it.”
Kamal Hamami, the Free Syrian Army commander killed on Thursday in the
coastal province of Latakia, had just met with others in the group about
getting weapons. Mr. Hamami worked as a butcher before the uprising and
was one of the first to join it, said Ammar, an antigovernment activist
from Latakia who would give only his first name.
But the Islamic State was apparently angry that he was planning an
operation without consulting it, said Anas, another activist who
witnessed the attack and described it in a video
posted online. Mr. Hamami’s men, on their way to delivering a Ramadan
meal to friends, were blocked by Islamic State fighters angry that a
checkpoint had been set up without their permission.
The commanders of the two groups quarreled, Anas said, and the Islamic
State commander, Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, shot Mr. Hamami dead.
But the two rebel groups are not just fighting over weapons and tactics.
Last week, members of the Islamic State were accused of beheading two
Free Syrian Army fighters and leaving their severed heads beside a
garbage can in a square in Dana, a rebel-held town in Idlib Province
near the Turkish border. The attack came after clashes broke out at a
demonstration against the Islamic State, leaving 13 people dead.
Recently, a fighter from the area, Abu al-Haytham, claimed that the
rebel dispute began when a foreign fighter with the Islamic State raped a
local boy — “the last straw,” he said — and Free Syrian Army commanders
complained.
“We staged demonstrations to get freedom, not to have an emir ruling
us,” Mr. Haytham said, referring to the title used by Islamist
commanders.
The collection of groups fighting the government has always been an
uneasy alliance, and some rebels have long said they expected to battle
the more radical groups — after defeating Mr. Assad — over their desire
to monopolize power and impose religious rule. As the fighting has
accelerated, the most radical groups have received the most resources
from abroad, allowing them to emerge as the most successful fighting
forces.
For a time, that success on the battlefield won the support of many
oppositions fighters and activists, who are eager to have a powerful
ally. But the prospect of victory has receded as government forces have
reasserted themselves with the help of Russia, Iran and the Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah. And now some rebels and activists find
themselves threatened by fighters they once saw as allies.
“The sea is in front of us, and the enemy is behind us,” said Sheik
Jassem al-Awad, a tribal leader in Raqqa, adding that he felt squeezed
between the government and the radical Islamists. “The Free Syrian Army
cannot open two fronts at once.”
Sheik Jassem spoke from Turkey, where he fled shortly after being held
in a cellar for 25 days by the Islamic State. The group arrested him and
eight others from an opposition media center in Raqqa and confiscated
$50,000 worth of equipment, he said. One of the others, Jamil Sello,
said he had several broken ribs from beatings and had been accused of
“trying to establish a secular state, collaborating with the U.S.
intelligence and Qatar.”
A deputy president of a Syrian tribal union, Sheik Jassem said the
Islamists had looted Raqqa of cash and even machinery from its Euphrates
River dams. He said that after the merger in April of the Nusra Front,
the first radical group to rise within the rebel movement, with Al Qaeda
in Iraq, the united group’s power had grown “like a larva transformed
into a butterfly.”
“What can I say?” he added. “The worst thing is that now the regime will gloat.”
When the Syrian protest movement became an uprising two years ago, the
Free Syrian Army was less an organization than a brand name for a loose
collection of units formed by civilians and army defectors. The exile
opposition tried to unify them, most recently under the secular-minded
Gen. Selim Idris.
But foreign fighters with a steady flow of weapons and cash from radical
Islamist donors attracted many Syrians to Nusra, which the United
States labeled a terrorist organization for its connection to the Qaeda
branch in Iraq.
The group’s growing prominence, and the willingness of some Free Syrian
Army units to work with it, increased the West’s reluctance to provide
military aid and gave Mr. Assad an opportunity to paint the entire
opposition as driven by foreign-backed extremists.
When the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq declared in April that it was merging
with Nusra, some Nusra fighters rejected the merger, and the
relationship between the groups is unclear. What is clear is that the
proliferation of radical groups of both foreigners and Syrians, which
have imposed a harsh interpretation of sharia law and carrying out
executions, has angered residents.
Activists this week circulated stories of at least four colleagues
arrested by the Islamic State: Zaid Mohammed, who challenged Islamist
tactics in Aleppo and was accused of being an apostate; Mohammed Noor
al-Matar, who was arrested while protesting with a woman in Raqqa;
Abdullah al-Khalil, the head of the civilian council in Raqqa who was
trying to establish a police force; and Mustafa al-Ahmadi, who
disappeared after being beaten in Aleppo Province.
They also accused the Islamic State of confiscating aid from
international aid groups in Tal Abyad in Raqqa Province, in the form of
generators to provide clean drinking water and 11,000 food baskets. The
group also posted warnings that anyone who violated the Ramadan fast
would be detained for the duration of the holy month.
People have protested the Islamic State across the north. “Go back to
Afghanistan, you have ruined the revolution,” read graffiti in Aleppo.
And in Menbej, in Aleppo Province, after the group erased revolutionary
drawings from walls, youths chanted, “Out with the Islamic State, they
are no different from Bashar al-Assad.”
Labels: Atrocities, Conflict, Human Rights, Islamists, Revolution, Syria, Terrorists
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 13, 2013
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