Air Strike Aims Questioned in Aleppo Region

The town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo, has long been unsafe because of intensive and destructive bombing by Syrian air force planes. Economic activity in this once-busy commercial centre has ground to a halt, and its residents have been living under the stifling rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Now they fear a new wave of air attacks, this time carried out by an international coalition that has vowed to strike at ISIS strongholds.

In al-Bab, streets that were until recently patrolled by ISIS vehicles are deserted. Checkpoints on the town’s outskirts are no longer manned. ISIS members have dispersed across the town, hiding out in homes they have taken over.

Before the first air strikes on Syria began on September 23, civilians in al-Bab stocked up on food, and markets and major streets are now empty. Public announcements advise people to avoid open areas and large crowds. People living close to ISIS’s headquarters in al-Bab are trying not to go out.

The pattern is similar in Idlib and Deir al-Zor, where residents told this reporter by phone that ISIS fighters have largely disappeared from public view and reduced their movements to a minimum.

When the attacks were imminent, ISIS leaders banned rank-and-file combatants from watching television so they would not be able to follow the news, and according to some reports, they seized the passports of foreign fighters.

In al-Bab, people are sharply divided – some oppose the attacks, some support them.

ISIS itself is denouncing the international intervention as a neo-colonial crusade against Islam. But many others too are concerned about it, albeit for different reasons.

The Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra is also being targeted by air strikes, and this has alarmed many residents of Aleppo and Idlib governorates. In areas under its control, Jabhat al-Nusra is seen as the only effective shield against ISIS’s aggressive expansionism, with a less stringent interpretation of Islamic rules, and it has recruited many young men as a result.

Jabhat al-Nusrah has now withdrawn its fighters from military positions and urban areas, and advised civilians to leave their homes. Two other Islamist groups operating in the region, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Mujahedin, are engaged in similar tactical dispersals.

Other forces including members of the Free Syrian Army are questioning why the West has taken no action against President Bashar al-Assad, the main source of violence in Syria.

Demonstrations have taken place in several parts of Syria raising concerns about civilian casualties caused by planes of United States and its Arab allies.

At the same time, many of al-Bab’s civilian residents are more supportive of the international action, hoping it will free them from ISIS oppression. If things cannot get worse, they reason, they can only get better.

Bari Abdul-Latif is a reporter in Aleppo governorate.