Syria Rebels Practice Patience in the Fight for Damascus
Syria Rebels Practice Patience in the Fight for Damascus
When shop owners and customers saw the small group of armed men appear on the street, they ran the other way or headed indoors.
“Go, go,” said one shopper, holding several bags as he ducked into an alley. “Go back, they’re going to start fighting.”
The tiny band of Free Syrian Army rebel fighters had decided to attack a nearby checkpoint, a rudimentary barrier of sandbags manned by a few government troops on a street lined with convenience stores, pharmacies and vegetable sellers.
Here in Tadamon, a southern Damascus neighborhood that has at various times in recent months been under rebel control, government forces are never far away.
“Put a song on so the guys get pumped up and turn up the volume,” one of the group’s fighters instructed their driver, as the men piled into a green minivan. They were armed with about a dozen Kalashnikov rifles, a handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher borrowed from another of the many militias affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.
As they approached the checkpoint, however, they decided there were still too many civilians around, so they called off the attack.
“We will hit it later,” said the commander of Al Furqan militia, who goes by the name Abu Rahaf.
Elsewhere in Syria, rebels have seized large swaths of the countryside and city districts. Here, opposition fighters operate within a labyrinth of government checkpoints, military bases and security compounds — more than 60 checkpoints in Damascus, according to activists’ estimates.