Eastern Aleppo is going through a harrowing time that neither words nor pictures can come close to describing.
Russian jets have bombed the city whereas Assad’s forces and Iran’s militias are on the outskirts of the city. At the same time, Hezbollah militias are cutting all the roads bringing supplies into the city.
Five hospitals were destroyed shortly after aircraft attacked a children’s hospital with chlorine gas. There was thus nowhere for thousands of wounded people to go. The attacks are targeted at civilian areas. Why?
The answer is obvious — the aim is to make the city suffer tragically, and twist the world’s arm, causing displacement of whoever is left in Aleppo to the Turkish border. Hence, no international humanitarian aid was allowed in; a UN-Turkish plan to allow the city self-autonomy was rejected as was any means to ease the people’s tragic situation from ceaseless destruction. As one lady said, “I sleep to distract myself from the misery.”
Despite all this, the Syrian regime’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem insisted on refusing self-autonomy, claiming that the 275,000 people of Eastern Aleppo are “hostages to 6,000 terrorists,” while stating that the regime would not leave the city nor allow aid into it. Yet, the truth is the opposite. Assad’s troops and its allies — Iran and Russia — are the ones taking the residents hostage; it is they who are besieging the city and starving the people while demolishing houses and destroying hospitals in a clear effort to push people out of the city they call home. Not only do they want to attack the 6,000 gunmen but also their aim is make the city uninhabitable. The Aleppo massacre is happening in front of the world, which is silent except for very few comments. This is only the beginning of a new round of battles in Syria, even if the regime manages to wipe out the last place that the Free Syrian Army hold and control.
The Free Syrian Army fighters are different from the terrorist entities, including Al-Nusra, which the regime and its allies are deliberately avoiding. They are doing so in order to use them as an excuse while they continue their destructive project of displacement and rule under the pretext of combating the terrorists of Daesh and Al-Nusra.
Since the fighting expanded last year, the Assad regime, Hezbollah militias and other extreme Shiite groups and the Russian Air Force, have not fought Daesh despite their promises and statements. The war against Daesh in Raqqa and other terrorist areas is being waged by the US and its allies. That makes it easy for the Iran-Assad alliance to enable the extreme Shiite militias to fight civilians living in almost all Sunni areas in order to impose a rule by the Alawite minority. What is happening today is madness, which will have deep and long-term consequences in the near future. What is the post-Assad outlook? The Free Syrian Army, the majority-backed force, which has been fighting the Assad regime for the past five years, will be weakened and possibly fragmented. This will leave its soldiers to join the fighters of armed extremist groups, such as Daesh, Nusra and others.
Some may wonder about the difference between the Free Syrian Army and Al-Nusra, since all of them are fighting Assad? The difference lies in their reasons for fighting. The Free Syrian Army has a national goal, which is to liberate their state from a regime they oppose whereas the fighters of Al-Nusra, mostly Syrians, unlike the foreign-majority Daesh, have a religious goal. Daesh consider themselves fighting infidels, which they are themselves, and they hope to establish an extremist “caliphate” around the world. The Aleppo massacres are also taking place in the rural areas of Idlib and Hama, which have thousands of Syrians joining Al-Nusra as the party fighting the regime. With a new regime, they can take revenge on former enemies and the whole world.
We are not here to support the Free Syrian Army, but we are pointing out that the Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah and the regime’s acts of sectarianism, murder and the systematic widespread displacement of civilians will not be forgotten. Eastern Aleppo could fall in days and maybe other cities will follow, but the crisis will only expand and the danger to the region and the world will thereby increase.
• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran journalist and internationally acclaimed columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel and ex-editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.
* Originally published in Asharq Al-Awsat
