West-backed Syria rebels shaken on multiple fronts

BEIRUT // During a key battle in the rugged mountains of northern Idlib province this month, US-backed Syrian rebels collapsed before an assault by Al Qaeda fighters. Some surrendered their weapons. Others outright defected to the militants.

Accounts of the battle from opposition activists underscore how the moderate rebels that Washington is trying to boost to fight groups such as Jabhat Al Nusra and ISIL are instead haemorrhaging on multiple fronts.

They face an escalated assault by the Islamist extremists, which activists say are increasingly working together to eliminate them. At the same time, a string of assassinations has targeted some of their most powerful commanders. “This is the end of the Free Syrian Army,” said Alaa Al Deen, an opposition activist in Idlib, referring to western-backed rebel groups. “It’s the beginning of an Islamic emirate.”

Thousands of Syrian rebels have died fighting ISIL this year, a war that has overshadowed and undermined the struggle to topple president Bashar Al Assad. Now Al Nusra – Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which previously was also fighting against ISIL – has turned on more moderate factions.

Opposition figures said last week that Al Nusra had gone so far as to agree to work together with ISIL, which had been shunned by other Islamist rebel groups because of its brutality against its opponents and those it deems heretics. Hoewever, Al Nusra and ISIL forces have not been seen together on the ground so far.

Al Nusra’s pivot in part is in response to US-led airstrikes that have targeted the Al Qaeda branch in addition to ISIL, activists said. Al Nusra has been hit three times in strikes the US said were aimed at a secret cell of high-ranking Al Qaeda militants plotting attacks against the West. The strikes have ignited tensions between western-backed groups and more extreme factions, who feel that the Americans are hitting everyone except Mr Al Assad’s forces.

Earlier this month, Al Nusra drove US-backed factions almost completely out of Idlib, where they had been the predominant force. Two of the strongest western-backed forces, the Hazm Movement and the Syrian Revolutionary Front, were defeated and several other allied groups simply vanished.

The Syrian Revolutionary Front, headed by Jamal Maarouf, oversaw groups ranging from village-based militias to factions with hundreds of men. He is estimated to have had 10,000 to 20,000 fighters under his command.

The fighting began when a group of men in the village of Bara defected from a faction loyal to Mr Maarouf and joined Ahrar Al Sham, an ultraconservative Islamist force.

Mr Maarouf first sent his nephew to Bara to retrieve the men’s weapons but that mission failed. He then ordered his fighters to surround and shell Bara, according to accounts from a local journalist and activists.

Ahrar Al Sham asked Al Nusra for help, and the conflict quickly spread. Other Islamist factions, Jund Al Aqsa and Suqour Al Sham, took Al Nusra’s side.

The Hazm Movement got involved when its fighters at a checkpoint halted Al Nusra militants trying to reach the battle. The Nusra fighters chased the Hazm men back to their stronghold, the nearby town of Khan Sunbul, which the extremists then overran. At least 65 Hazm fighters defected to the Al Qaeda branch.

Within days, Mr Maarouf’s men and Hazm fighters were routed, with most fleeing into neighbouring Aleppo province. Around seven other allied factions melted away.

The groups were identified as western-backed because they possessed TOW anti-tank missiles, which only US-supported groups have.

Washington announced this summer that it intended to arm moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIL, but it is awaiting congressional approval. The US has only acknowledged giving non-lethal aid to rebels, but the CIA has said it is running a training programme in Jordan, and officials have said third parties have provided US-made weapons to factions vetted by Washington.

“There was hope that they might prove to be an effective force in the crackdown on the Al Qaeda presence in Syria – but that has been dashed,” said Aymenn Al Tamimi, an expert on rebel groups. “They are not strong enough.”

Western-backed groups are also being eroded in other ways. There has been a series of mysterious slayings targeting powerful rebel leaders fighting ISIL.

The extremist group – and to a lesser extent Al Nusra – are probably behind most of the killings, but the Assad regime has also increased pressure on moderate rebels since the start of the US-led air campaign, said Torbjorn Soltvedt, a Middle East analyst at the risk advisory firm Maplecroft.

Most recently, Ayman Abdul-Rahman, commander of the Liwa Tawheed group, was shot dead in an internet cafe in the northern town of Hreitan on October 23, said Ibrahim Saeed, an activist in Aleppo. Abdul-Rahman was one of the first commanders in the Free Syrian Army to fight against ISIL.

Now many rebel commanders are laying low, Mr Saeed said. “We don’t know where they live or where they go or where they sleep.”

* Associated Press.