Abu Obeida, the commander of the Northern Storm Brigade, left his mud-camouflaged Toyota operating as he obtained out to examine the grime street operating by means of the no man’s land that separated his rural base north west of Aleppo from a Hezbollah place 200 metres away.
A month in the past, this entrance towards the Lebanese group was the place the Islamist insurgent offensive that modified Syria for ever started. The 25-year-old’s unit was supposed to comb for landmines and unexploded ordnance among the many olive groves within the aftermath of the opposition’s gorgeous 12-day rout of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies. It rapidly turned obvious that, amid many different extra urgent duties, his individuals hadn’t been thorough sufficient.
Pulling on the journey wire mendacity throughout the monitor, Obeida pressed down calmly on a patch of sentimental purple earth together with the street together with his boot, then used his naked palms to uncover and disable a landmine that would have blown off his arm or the entrance half of the truck. Grinning, he climbed again into the motive force’s seat. “Watch out once you get out. Observe in my footsteps,” he mentioned. It was the primary of a number of armed mines the commander discovered that day.
On a chilly however sunny December afternoon, Obeida – actual title Ahmad Abdo al-Salam Qaranfel – gave the Observer an perception into how the battle for Aleppo unfolded, taking us to the bottom the place the marketing campaign began. The northern Syrian metropolis, the closest to the final rebel-held pocket of the nation, was the primary goal of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led-offensive.
Three months earlier, the Turkish-backed Northern Storm Brigade, as soon as an enemy of HTS, was one in every of many smaller spiritual insurgent teams introduced onboard for the brand new marketing campaign to oust the regime after 13 years of battle and 4 of stalemate. However regardless that the entrance traces froze in 2020, when Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire between Assad’s forces and numerous insurgent teams, Obeida and his males had stored busy.
On the Northern Storm staging put up close to the village of Tamura, reverse a Hezbollah unit, the brigade dug out roads for heavy autos, in addition to big underground caves that would sleep tons of in rudimentary circumstances. The kitchen was little greater than a camp hearth, and water from a tank was strictly rationed. Tunnels linked a number of chambers, the entrances hidden from enemy drones by netting. Some sloped as much as machine gun and sniping positions; others prolonged 200m east, proper as much as the Hezbollah entrance.
Hezbollah, holed up on a farm reverse, knew the brigade was constructing underground, Obeida mentioned, however didn’t know when the offensive that broke the four-year ceasefire would come. Troop and heavy weaponry buildups within the weeks earlier than the assault didn’t seem to faze the Lebanese fighters, and when the operation started on 27 November, they had been rapidly overwhelmed.
Northern Storm fired a gap salvo of 40 rockets at Hezbollah. Concurrently, pick-up vans, mounted with .50 calibre machine weapons, roared as much as outposts on roads protected by 3m-high earth berms, forcing the group to retreat to the farmhouse and a water tower. 200 infantry armed with rifles and RPGs then emerged from the tunnels.
Obeida’s three brothers, additionally brigade commanders, joined him within the battle. Khaled, 26, was killed within the battle; Obeida mentioned he was shot straight within the chest.
“It wasn’t simple … They fought properly for about two hours. We killed 40 of them and the remaining 100 fled,” he mentioned. He confirmed grisly footage on his telephone of bloodied corpses slumped towards a wall, all carrying fatigues emblazoned with Hezbollah’s yellow and inexperienced insignia.
The unit below Obeida’s command pushed on after storming the Hezbollah base to a street resulting in Aleppo metropolis. In whole, about 70 villages and posts fell below the HTS-led umbrella’s management over the following two days, till the rebels reached the western outskirts of the town.
Authorities troops fled, whereas fighters from the Kurdish-majority Folks’s Safety Unit (YPG) retreated to the northern neighbourhoodsof Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh. Each the regime and Russia launched air strikes in an try and stymie the rebels, however with little resistance on the bottom, inside a day HTS had captured most authorities and navy installations within the metropolis, in addition to the symbolic historical citadel in Aleppo’s coronary heart.
Obeida was on the scene of an airstrike on the Basel roundabout that killed at the least 15 civilians, he mentioned. “The street to the hospital was blocked. We tried to deal with individuals on the road, in vehicles, however with out correct assist they died.”
The offensive’s planners had estimated that the battle for Aleppo would take six months, and the marketing campaign would take two years to achieve Damascus, the commander mentioned. As a substitute, the regime and its allies folded like a home of playing cards. Aleppo was gained in a day, Hama, a couple of days later, Homs three days after that. The capital, Damascus, fell inside the subsequent 24 hours, as exhausted Syrian military conscripts and jaded officers caved within the face of the insurgent march south.
The return of insurgent fighters in Aleppo, eight years after the top of the battle for the town, is bewildering for residents and militants alike. Obeida grew up simply 25km away from the town, in a village referred to as Atarib, however had by no means been there earlier than; he’s not used to metropolis site visitors, and finds driving there tough. A doorman on the entrance to a lodge who requested him to verify his pistol into the cloakroom was met with a befuddled stare.
“I believe the individuals suppose we’re terrorists. They’re afraid of us,” he mentioned. “We’re guided by God, however we perceive that not everyone seems to be Muslim or thinks the identical approach.”
There are deep considerations that HTS and its allies will impose an intolerant model of Islamist rule on Syria. The extra urgent situation may very well be whether or not HTS can maintain its unlikely alliance of insurgent teams collectively, or whether or not there can be a return to warfare.
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Obeida put it bluntly: “If HTS don’t ship on their guarantees of cash and jobs, we are going to return to combating them,” he mentioned.
The commander was simply 12 years outdated when Syria’s Arab spring rebellion morphed into civil battle; he was 15 when he picked up a gun. His is the second technology of Syrians caught up in battle. “Resistance isn’t a alternative. This life was not my alternative,” he mentioned.
Assad’s forces reconquered Atarib, his dwelling, in 2020. The Northern Storm Brigade then misplaced greater than half of its 20,000 males battling HTS, which was searching for to consolidate its management of north-west Syria.
Obeida and his household finally settled in Azaz, on the border with Turkey, a part of a strip of northern Syria the Turkish state occupied in 2016 in a brand new chapter of its decades-long battle towards Kurdish teams.
At face worth, Northern Storm’s choice to make peace with HTS and be part of the renewed push towards the regime makes little sense, and Obeida modifications the topic when it’s introduced up. “We had no alternative however to belief them,” he mentioned.
The 25-year-old can be clear-eyed about Turkey, which pays his wage, and has partial administrative authority over Azaz, the place his mother and father, spouse and seven-month-old child lady reside.
“I’m paid $85 each 45 days. My males make $65,” he mentioned. “The Turks don’t truly care about us and our trigger, they simply use us when it’s handy.”
Obeida is delighted by how rapidly he and his males helped to overthrow Assad. On the similar time, he’s troubled by what the longer term holds for him and his younger household.
“I’m not educated, I don’t know learn how to do the rest besides battle. I wish to have a brand new function in a brand new Syria … however I don’t know what that’s,” he mentioned.
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