Inter-rebel battles

Competing rebel factions in Syria are increasingly attacking each other in a series of killings, kidnappings and beheadings, undermining the already struggling effort to topple President Bashar Assad.

The open hostilities could no longer be contained, when a Western-aligned group, the Free Syrian Army, demanded that an al-Qaeda-linked rebel faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, turn over the suspected killers of a prominent commander who was shot dead. Commanders with the Free Syrian Army warned that the broader movement against Assad was being threatened by the conflict between itself and the Islamic State.

The infighting is a new low for an opposition that was never able to unite its military or civilian operations. Across the expanse of the battlefield in Syria, in places like the northeastern province of Raqqa and the divided city of Aleppo, rebels are attacking each other and their supporters with regularity. Competition for recruits and weapons - and the right to define the character of the future state - has fueled the inter-rebel battles.

“The Islamic State wants to eliminate the Free Syrian Army higher command,” Ahmed Farzat, a Free Syrian Army lieutenant, said in an interview on Skype from the central city of Homs, where rebels are struggling against a fierce government assault.
Kamal Hamami, the Free Syrian Army commander killed on Thursday in the coastal province of Latakia, had just met others in the group about getting weapons. Hamami worked as a butcher before the uprising and was one of the first to join it, said Ammar, an anti-government activist from Latakia who would only give his first name.
But the Islamic State was apparently angry that he was planning an operation without consulting it, said Anas, another activist who witnessed the attack and posted a video of it online. Hamami’s men, on their way to delivering a Ramadan meal to friends, were blocked by Islamic State fighters angry that a checkpoint had been set up without their permission. The commanders of the two groups quarreled, Anas said, and the Islamic State commander, Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, shot Hamami dead. But the two rebel groups are not just fighting over weapons and tactics.
Last week, members of the Islamic State were accused of beheading two Free Syrian Army fighters and leaving their severed heads beside a garbage can in a square in Dana, a rebel-held town in Idlib province near the Turkish border. The attack came after clashes broke out at a demonstration against the Islamic State, leaving 13 people dead.

Recently, a fighter from the area, Abu al-Haytham, claimed that the rebel dispute began when a foreign fighter with the Islamic State raped a local boy - “the last straw,” he said - and Free Syrian Army commanders complained. “We staged demonstrations to get freedom, not to have an emir ruling us,” Haytham said, referring to the title used by Islamist commanders.

Uneasy alliance

The collection of groups fighting the government has always been an uneasy alliance, and some rebels have long said they expected to battle the more radical groups - after defeating Assad - over their desire to monopolize power and impose religious rule. As the fighting has accelerated, the most radical groups have received the most resources from abroad, allowing them to emerge as the most successful fighting forces.

For a time, that success on the battlefield won the support of many oppositions fighters and activists, who are eager to have a powerful ally But the prospect of victory has receded as government forces have reasserted themselves with the help of Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. And now some rebels and activists find themselves threatened by fighters they once saw as allies.

“The sea is in front of us and the enemy is behind us,” said Sheik Jassem al-Awad, a tribal leader in Raqqa, adding that he felt squeezed between the government and the radical Islamists. “The Free Syrian Army cannot open two fronts at once.”

Al-Awad spoke from Turkey, where he fled shortly after being held in a cellar for 25 days by the Islamic State. The group arrested him and eight others from an opposition media center in Raqqa and confiscated $50,000 worth of equipment, he said. One of the others, Jamil Sello, said he had several broken ribs from beatings and had been accused of “trying to establish a secular state, collaborating with the U.S. intelligence and Qatar.”

A deputy president of a Syrian tribal union, al-Awad said the Islamists had looted Raqqa of cash and even machinery from its Euphrates River dams. He said that after the merger in April of the Nusra Front, the first radical group to rise within the rebel movement, with al-Qaida in Iraq, the united group’s power had grown “like a larva transformed into a butterfly.”

“What can I say?” he added. “The worst thing is that now the regime will gloat.”
Activists this week circulated stories of at least four colleagues arrested by the Islamic State: Zaid Mohammed, who challenged Islamist tactics in Aleppo and was accused of being an apostate; Mohammed Noor al-Matar, who was arrested while protesting with a woman in Raqqa; Abdullah al-Khalil, the head of the civilian council in Raqqa who was trying to establish a police force; and Mustafa al-Ahmadi, who disappeared after being beaten in Aleppo province.

They also accused the Islamic State of confiscating aid from international aid groups in Tal Abyad in Raqqa province, in the form of generators to provide clean drinking water in Tal Afar and 11,000 food baskets. The group also posted warnings that anyone who violated the Ramadan fast would be detained for the duration of the holy month. People have protested the Islamic State across the north.