AZZAZ, Syria—Opposition fighters locked in battle for Syria's
largest city, Aleppo, have a new resource: Rebels now control a swath of
territory to their north, including two border crossings with Turkey.
The
opposition hopes its first substantial enclave of the 17-month uprising, seized
from the government in the past few weeks, will transform a fight that for
months has seen no clear victor. A similar enclave allowed Libyan rebels to
sustain their fight in Libya last year.
Already, the
Syrian enclave has made it easier for rebels to bring fighters, weapons, food,
fuel and other logistic needs to Aleppo.
Enlarge
Image
Rebel
fighters head to battle on Thursday in Aleppo, where government shelling forced
a rebel retreat.
The battle
for Syria's commercial capital could be pivotal. A rebel victory there would
deal an unprecedented blow to President Bashar al-Assad's rule; regime
dominance there could free Mr. Assad's troops to try to regain the north.
Thursday's
fighting in Aleppo brought the latest shift in the unresolved battle: A
government offensive drove rebel militias from the southern neighborhood of
Salaheddin, amid heavy army shelling of several other neighborhoods on the
outskirts of the city of 2.2 million, according to rebel fighters and
residents.
Rebels, who
had held Salaheddin for more than a week, gave conflicting reports of whether
they staged a strategic retreat or were overrun by the ferocity of the
government attack.
Mr. Assad's
security forces lost control of the sweep of countryside north of Aleppo in
late July, fleeing an offensive by rebel groups from across the rural north.
Since then, local village committees that steered the uprising have shifted
gears, transforming themselves into interim village governments. Rebel
checkpoints now dot the winding single-lane roads between the region's farming
villages and towns.
Except for a
lone air base where loyalist soldiers are hunkered down and mostly surrounded
by rebel fighters, the countryside stretching from Aleppo to the Turkish border
about 30 miles away has been cleared of government forces.
The Syrian
border town of Azzaz, to Aleppo's north, fell to rebel fighters on July 21, and
much of the rest of the countryside north of Aleppo fell within days, rebels
said. About a week ago, rebel fighters-turned-bureaucrats took up posts at a
pair of border crossings with Turkey, one near Azzaz and the other west of
Aleppo. Crisply dressed rebels check passports of new arrivals, enter names
into computers and extend a welcome hand to "Free Syria."
Samir Haj
Omar, an economist who now heads the local 30-member political council in
Azzaz, said Turkish officials have been more willing to deal with him and other
rebel leaders now that they are de facto governors.
He has used
that newfound heft to convince Turkey to allow cargo trucks to cross the
border. On Wednesday, the first new shipments of rice, flour and gasoline
arrived in rebel-controlled northern Syria, according to local officials here.
Throughout the
north, a region where many civilians had fled or remained locked in their
houses to avoid the regime's crackdown on protests, people now fill village
streets. Shops have reopened in recent days for the first time in four months.
In the village of Maraa, children flocked to a reopened public swimming pool to
cool off on Thursday. Abandoned Syrian Army tanks have been converted to
makeshift playgrounds.
For fighters
desperately trying to keep up supplies of food, fuel and weapons, the ability
to freely cross the Turkish border and move between villages without fear of
encountering regime forces is a dramatic change.
Earlier in
the conflict, supplies were ferried across the Turkish border by horse, or on
foot, by smugglers traversing muddy trails while dodging Turkish and Syrian
border guards. A local fighter in Azzaz who said he helped smuggle in local
rebels' first rocket propelled grenades earlier this year said it took them
weeks to negotiate the treacherous route through regime-controlled territory for
just two RPGs.
Now, such
supply shipments can make the run from the Turkish border to the front line in
Aleppo in about 90 minutes.
"In
Damascus, it was difficult to get guns and supplies, but in Aleppo, it is
easy," said Ahmed Kaialy, a 24-year-old rebel who fought in both cities.
He spoke
from a makeshift clinic in Turkey on Tuesday, a day after rocket shrapnel
lodged in his eye while fighting in Aleppo's Salaheddin neighborhood. Before,
it might have taken him as much as two weeks to get smuggled out to Turkey or
Lebanon for treatment, he said. Now, open roads and control of the border mean
he will be able to return to battle within days.
Rebels also
see their control of northern Syria as an opportunity to show their countrymen
and the international community what their governance may look like if the
Assad regime is toppled. New governing structures are beginning to sprout. An
Azzaz city council has been established headed by a former schoolteacher. A
rebel brigade polices the streets. Sheik Yussuf al-Shahawi, the new,
25-year-old imam at the local mosque, has taken charge of the civil courts,
conducting marriages, divorces and settling civil disputes.
A nascent
criminal court system—run by local Muslim clerics in many villages—has begun to
operate, using Islamic law as the foundation for decisions.
In a sign of
the struggles Syria could face if Mr. Assad's regime falls, Mr. Shahawi said
his early efforts have been focused on stopping mistreatment of detained
regime-loyalist fighters—and convincing their captors to leave justice to the
new courts—as well as preventing revenge attacks against a nearby Shiite
village that supported the regime.
He said
there have been numerous such incidents, but calls them isolated exceptions.
The last
Syrian regime bastion in the rebels' northern enclave is the Mennigh Air Base,
where loyalist forces continue to fight from inside the base's besieged walls.
They toss regular volleys of artillery fire at the nearby village of Tel Rifat.
A regime war plane occasionally ventures north from the war's front line battle
in Aleppo and drops bombs on newly freed villages.
On
Wednesday, two bombs were dropped on a rebel headquarters in an abandoned
elementary school in Tel Rifat leaving two craters in the school courtyard,
rebels said. A third bomb flattened a house and killed the family inside.
"We can breathe now, but the regime is still here," said Yassin Dibo,
a rebel fighter from Tel Rifat.
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