In satellite towns and provincial cities, where levels of preparedness were not as high, people raised their voices. They did not demand Bashar step down—that was too dangerous—but they did demand reform, liberty and democracy. With the exception of Friday prayers, gathering in groups in Syria was forbidden. Consequently, the first demonstrations began after congregated prayer, with men marching in silence. As time went on, they began chanting slogans.
Some rallies became celebrations. Local singers entertained on makeshift stages, poets stood aloft on ladders among the crowd and recited verse, little girls swayed on their parents’ shoulders, and women stood on balconies waving their shawls, all on a high of emotion.
Extremism came later, jihadism came later, as did the weapons. First came the dream of freedom.
War began as it often does, with scattered skirmishes. One person killed, one family grieved. Two people killed, the people continued dancing. Three killed, they will never break us. Four killed, the women stayed indoors; five killed, the children disappeared from the demonstrations; six killed, the singing stopped; seven killed, funerals turned into protest marches; eight killed, the dead had to be avenged; nine killed, young men took up arms; ten killed, they learned to kill.
Then the slaughter began.
The murder of the demonstrators throughout 2011 was carried out with a brutality that stirred the collective memory of the Syrians and brought to mind the massacre in Hama a generation before. The difference now was that it was being captured on camera, people filmed it with their mobile phones, recordings were smuggled out and spread on the internet. The Assad regime was no longer able to kill in the darkness. Not that the international community lifted a finger. Although world leaders condemned the violence, it was left up to the Syrians themselves to oppose it. In response to the regime meeting demonstrators with tanks, the Free Syrian Army, FSA, was formed.
At the beginning the rebel army was composed of soldiers, officers, and a few generals who refused to open fire on their own people. These deserters wanted the Arab Spring to come to Syria—an end to the Assad regime. As new demonstrators were killed, more civilians joined the armed resistance. Poets no longer regaled the crowds; they learned how to fire live rounds. Barbers no longer shaved; they let their beards grow and cleaned their weapons. Engineers manufactured bombs and medical students mixed Molotov cocktails. The Free Syrian Army was open to all: Sunnis, Shias, Alawites, and Christians. It had no program other than a free, democratic, secular state.
The regime’s response was to steer the conflict onto a sectarian track, in order to foster division within the disparate coalition. Bashar’s strategy was to pitch extremists, who had little support in Syria, against the moderates, who represented the majority of the population. The eye doctor feared democracy more than Islamism.
State propaganda consistently referred to the revolutionaries as terrorists, and as early as spring 2011, when the revolt was in its infancy, the authorities released hundreds of militant Islamists from Sednaya prison outside Damascus. They soon formed militias and demonstrated their gratitude—prisoners often didn’t get out alive—by refraining from attacking the soldiers of the regime, training their weapons instead on the armed, secular opposition. A new front was opened against the FSA—jihadists funded by the oil wealth in the Gulf.
The forces fighting for democracy implored the West for arms support. Europe’s leaders were irresolute. Obama was reluctant. The world looked away.
* * *
The border town of Atmeh, where Osman lived with his parents, wife, and two daughters when the civil war broke out, was conquered by the Free Syrian Army in October 2011. Owing to its location on a strip of Syrian land jutting into Turkey, the town had been spared Assad’s air strikes. Their long-range rockets were imprecise and the Syrian regime did not want to run the risk of hitting a NATO member. The town became a revolving door for foreign combatants, fired up on the way in, wounded on the way out. Trucks carrying weapons from Turkey came through, while oil from the fields the militias had taken over was driven out.
When Sadiq arrived at the end of October 2013, Atmeh was split between the FSA and a motley assortment of Islamists, with Jabhat al-Nusra and two other militias, Ahrar al-Sham and Suqur al-Islam, the biggest actors. The front lines between the militias were fluid, hence the constant exchanges of fire. Young men wearing different headbands, always armed with loaded weapons, glowered at one another in a fight for territory. Fuses were short and hostility ran high. If one side fired a shot, the other side responded. Here we are! This is ours! Keep out of our way!
Atmeh, once a sedate village surrounded by olive groves, was on speed.
In Osman’s living room, morning turned to afternoon. Eventually they agreed on a price for the minders, the weapon, and the vehicle, the same Škoda pickup from the night before.
“You are my guest,” Osman said, grinning, because no one’s lodgings came free. The first order of business was to bring Sadiq around and introduce him. The war had its own bureaucracy; foreigners could not be in Syria without belonging to a group, somebody had to vouch for you. If you operated on your own or delayed in choosing a side, you could easily be suspected of being a spy.
They went first to Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria was the most powerful militia in the area and took its orders from the leaders of the terror organization. Their income was derived from oil trading, hostage taking, looting, smuggling, donations, taxes, and appropriation of property. At their headquarters, one of the Assad regime’s public buildings, Osman and Sadiq were met by Abu Islam, a young man with thick glasses and a plump, pear-shaped body.
They placed their shoes outside and walked barefoot into a carpeted room where some commanders were having a discussion over glasses of tea.
Sadiq related his story. Unfortunately, Abu Islam had not heard of any Somali girls. Foreigners
