As I write these lines, Syrian forces are shelling thevillage outside Aleppo where I am staying. Earlier this day, fighter jetsbombed the hamlet, forcing people to take shelter with their crying children instairwells and cellars while the earth shook. Outside, piles of wreckage wherehouses once stood lay covered in dust and villagers ran through the streets,shouting for help for the wounded.
The regime of Bashar Assad claims it is carrying outsurgical strikes to root out “terrorists.” In reality, its indiscriminatebombing is killing defenseless civilians either too proud or too poor to leavetheir homes. All have become targets. Last month, an 11-year-old boy named Mahmoudwas killed here by shelling as he fled a mosque under fire. “He did not knowwhat this war was about,” his father told me, recalling how the child wouldswitch television channels from war news to the cartoon antics of Tom andJerry.
As the regime has ratcheted up its war machine, fromshooting protesters to shelling and now bombing rebel areas, many Syrians havedemonstrated stoic calm. I asked one middle-aged man whether risking his lifewas worth whatever marginal benefits staying in the village could offer. “Whatdo you mean marginal benefits?” he asked. “I am defending my home.”
The daily airstrikes and nightly shelling have becomeroutine here. Families gather in cellars, and disperse only when the guns andthe whistling shrieks of falling bombs fall silent. Veiled women press theirknuckles to their cheeks while teenagers flip through pictures on cellularphones. “Only God can stop the bombing and He chooses not to,” a man tells meafter the din of jets engines has faded.
The air strikes reflect no strategy or design. Bombs oftenfall on empty farmland or desolate streets. This is not by mistake. The regimeis trying to intimidate residents into submission by demonstrating overwhelmingforce. But 18 months into the civil war, most people here remain unwilling tosurrender.
Resistance takes many forms. In places were the governmenthas disappeared, village elders create local councils to ensure that servicesstill function. Businessmen raise money to buy wheat and milk. Intrepidcivilians cross into government-controlled areas to purchase precious medicineand gasoline.
It is the Syrians’ about-face toward America and its alliesthat has been most striking to me. Syrians have never been a people who trustWesterners. The ideology of the ruling Baath party “ inculcated from elementaryschool on “ teaches that European colonialists carved out parts of Syria tocreate a Jewish state in Palestine and a Christian one in Lebanon. Arab unity “and not friendship with the West “ has always been the force that would restoreSyria to its rightful place among nations.
Many Syrians still believe all Westerners here are spies “especially Americans, given Washington’s strong support of their country’sarchenemy, Israel. Syria under the Assads has had no other regional foe and hasfought three wars against Israel. But with an Arab world too weak andsplintered to intervene, the anti-Western ideology is starting to crack. Atevery house and rebel barracks, locals beseech Americans like me for U.S.intervention. “Calling Bashar a butcher don’t save us from his bombs,” anEnglish teacher told me.
As the international community dithers, many Syrians areprepared to accept aid from whoever offers it “ even from Israel. Iran andHezbollah support the regime; that makes these enemies of Israel also enemiesof the rebels. Many Syrians believe Israel is not hamstrung by the samemilitary inhibitions that prevent Washington from intervening.
In any case, other outside forces are providing aid. Everyday dozens of jihadists from countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and evenBritain trickle across the border. They bring with them an extremistinterpretation of Islam that is out of step with the more tolerant version thathas long prevailed in Syria, and many people here worry that their secularrevolution will turn into a jihad to establish an Islamic emirate. But as Assadintensifies the violence and hopes for international intervention fade,people’s resistance to foreign fighters is gradually subsiding. And every daythat it does, the tentacles of radical Islam spread.
“We don’t want al-Qaida,” said one of the villagers. “Wetold fighters with a religious bent not to bring their ideology here. But wefear that as the world turns its back on us more will be drawn to theorganization.”
Barak Barfi is a research fellow at the NewAmerica Foundation
