How the Syrian Army unwittingly assists the rebel movement

Editor's note: Names and locations have been redacted from the original report to protect the participants. 

Syrian rebels have an unlikely ally - the Syrian army itself. The very troops that are ordered to kill women, children, and elderly men in their homes are the same ones defecting to the rebels and supplying them with weapons. 

IDLIB PROVINCE, SYRIA (Catholic Online) - In the hot desolate mountains of western Syria, rebel fighters gather for another attack. Hiding along a ridge, they wait for a government convoy to pass along the road below. The convoy approaches and muscles tense. The rebels can count on a brutal counterattack - they have one chance to get it right. 

Buried in the dirt next to the road is a massive cache of explosives. A garage door opener acts as the detonator. Meanwhile, an armored vehicle followed by a line of trucks filled with soldiers and supplies snakes its way along the dusty valley floor.

Perhaps nervous the bomb won't go off on the first try, a rebel begins mashing the button on the garage door opener. The bomb detonates-immediately, but it's a moment too soon to knock out the armored vehicle. The rebels have made a mistake. 

Gunfire is exchanged with the soldiers below, but already the men are running. Within a couple minutes the inevitable whine of mortar shells can be heard. From a distance, each mortar blast sounds like the muffled slamming of a car door.

The rebels melt into the hills with a plan to regroup in a nearby village later. 

Later that evening the butcher bill comes in. Three government soldiers killed, and the rebels escaped unscathed - this time. 

But the ambushes go both ways. In the mountains, the preferred weapon of the regime appears to be helicopters and if the rebels are spied meeting outdoors, the low thrum of helicopter blades eventually breaks up the meeting. Using Soviet-era attack helicopters, the Syrian gunners get one or two passes at the rebels before they have scattered. Usually they miss, but a hit can be fatal.

The rebels have very few medical supplies with which to treat their wounded. 

Still, they manage to keep supplied. A year ago, sympathetic businessmen donated money to the cause which helped rebels buy hunting rifles and pistols for their own use. Since then, Assad's loyalists have carried out a brutal repression of anyone thought to be aiding the rebels. It has worked, and the donations are both rare and paltry. 

When weapons and ammo come into short supply, the rebels pool their money and meet with corrupt government officials who sell them what they need. A single round of 7.62 caliber ammunition for an AK-47 assault rifle costs the equivalent of $4 USD. 

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What is keeping the rebel movement alive here is, ironically, the effort to extinguish it. As Assad orders his troops to kill innocents, including children, more soldiers join the rebels reporting time and again that they defected because they could no longer stand participating in the brutality against unarmed people. 

Often, defectors bring their weapons and knowledge of operations for the rebels. Leaders use these men, their information and weapons to strike government troops and their supplies. In so doing, each raid hopefully nets a small cache of new weapons and ammo to sustain the fight for another week.
The army defectors replace the rebel casualties. 

Each evening, the rebels gather to discuss the current situation and the next day's plans. They are badly outnumbered and out gunned, and often it is only the remoteness of their hideouts that keeps the government troops at distance. They fear for their villages and their families. Every man knows what defeat means -- their families will be exterminated. They fight only because they are convinced they have no choice. 

Meanwhile, they ask about the news, hopeful the attacks will stop and a resolution, either peaceful or military, will end the fighting. They hope that Assad and his men will be toppled and killed or brought to justice for their murderous rampage through the country. They hope the world is paying attention and will understand they are humans, people with families, educations, careers, and lives interrupted by a civil war imposed on them from Damascus. They share their stories in the hopes that the world will hear and help. 

Yet, mostly they pray, hoping to live another day and for the return of peace that will certainly elude them for a long time to come.

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