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July 27th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
They face a dilemma over whether to join the battle for Aleppo or stay to
defend the town from a possible counter-attack. President Bashar al-Assad’s
forces have launched a major operation to prevent Aleppo, Syria‘s
commercial capital with some 2.5 million people, from falling into rebel
hands.
On Thursday, the regime was reported to have sent another 100 tanks to the
city, moving them from the rural province of Idlib, which has been largely
ceded to the rebels. The insurgents are realistic about their chances of
resisting a full-scale attack. “The army’s reinforcements have arrived
in Aleppo,” Colonel Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi, a spokesman for the rebel
Free Syrian Army (FSA), told AFP news agency. “We expect a major
offensive at any time, specifically on areas across the southern belt, from
east to west.” Col Okaidi added: “There’s no way to compare our
capacity to theirs. They have tanks, we have medium and light weapons. But
we believe in our struggle; they are fighting for nothing.”
Outside Aleppo, even apparently straightforward mopping-up operations have
exposed the rebels’ weakness. When they attacked a police station near
al-Bab, one fighter was killed and the rest declared failure and withdrew.
Sami Assam is part of a five-man unit that specialises in attacking the
remnants of the regime’s forces stranded in rebel-held areas. A former
shopkeeper in Greece, he returned to his homeland to join the revolt last
year – only to be captured and locked up. He was a prisoner for three months
until his jail fell to the FSA.
This prison is now a rebel headquarters. Fighters sleep in the cells, while
policemen’s hats lie piled in a corner. All the torture instruments used by
the regime’s security forces have apparently been destroyed.
“You could be in here for anything – just walking on the wrong street for
example – and they would try to make you into a broken man,” said
Mr Assam, 28. “Three months in here was the most miserable experience I
have had.”
But ethnic and sectarian tensions are rising in areas controlled by the FSA.
Friends ask whether acquaintances are Arabs or Turkoman. Meanwhile, the
tools of a successful guerrilla movement, such as rocket-propelled grenade
launchers and roadside bombs, are notable by their absence.
A promised flood of weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar has yet to reach the
rebels in this area. Here, their best chance of equipping themselves is to
seize an armoury from the security forces.
For the moment, the rebels admit they could do nothing to stop an armoured
column from reinforcing the military base outside al-Bab. Now that state
officials have fled, rival factions dominate the politics of the town.
Rumours spread that the hated pro-regime Shabiha militia is trying to fuel
local disputes. Suspicious crowds stop unknown cars and question the
occupants.
“This is the calm before the storm. We are very nervous now and no-one is
leading us,” said Ahmed Abdullah, a law lecturer. “Our fate is in
God’s hands only.”
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