by Reese Erlich
“At the start of the uprising, the brotherhood appeared hesitant to become involved in the conflict,” wrote Aron Lund in a publication by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This probably reflected doubts about the uprising's chances of success, an awareness of the brotherhood's own weakness inside Syria, and a deliberate choice to maintain a low profile while the regime was trying to portray the revolution as led by Islamists.”19
The brotherhood had transformed itself politically in the 1990s in an effort to reverse its isolation inside Syria and to gain international legitimacy. It wanted to show that it wasn't a terrorist group—particularly after the events of September 11, 2001. It called for Syria to be ruled as a Muslim nation under a modern form of Shariah (Islamic) law but emphasized the need for elections, human rights, and pluralism.20 Its 2004 program rejected a strategy of armed struggle and called for peaceful political change.
The group's leader at the time, Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, cultivated a modernist image. For example, he disagreed politically with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when it declared that neither a woman nor a Coptic Christian could become president of Egypt. And he rejected the idea of forming a religious council to determine if secular laws adhered to Shariah. At the same time, the brotherhood maintained conservative cultural views on alcohol, women's rights, and popular entertainment. As Arab nationalists, its leaders refused to recognize the rights of Kurds or Assyrians, two minorities with their own particular demands.
The brotherhood leaders hoped to return to Syria as a tolerated opposition group, which made them initially reluctant to endorse the uprising. As the rebellion gathered steam and appeared that it could topple Assad, however, the brotherhood shifted course. In March 2011, it published the Ten Point Pledge and Charter aimed at showing Syrians and the Western powers that it could govern Syria. It mentioned Islam only in the preamble as being a guide. It called for an elected civil state, a pluralist political system, and no discrimination based on religion. Mohammad Farouk Tayfour, a brotherhood deputy, said, “The brotherhood will not monopolize power in the political arena and in managing the coming period.”21
Brotherhood leaders had cultivated extensive ties internationally, particularly with the Islamist government of Turkey. Those leaders became major players in the formation of the Syrian National Council based in Istanbul. The SNC, which had the backing of the United States and its allies, was supposed to be a civilian coalition representing the entire opposition. As the Assad regime continued its repression and other groups took up armed struggle, the brotherhood created an armed militia, the Commission of the Revolution's Shields, in May 2012. But they failed to gain traction inside the country.
Omar Mushaweh, a brotherhood leader living in Istanbul, told me that his group favored a moderate version of Shariah law. He said the new Syria would model itself on modern Turkey, which is governed by a parliamentary system and respects different religions. Minority and women's rights would be protected, he argued. “We will not force women to wear the hijab [head covering],” he said. “It will be by choice.”22
Some secular Syrians don't trust the brotherhood's rhetoric, however. Miral Bioredda, the LCC leader we met earlier, told me that the “Islamists say they want a democratic country, but I don't believe them.”23 But the ex-bodyguard calling himself Bashar typified the views of many when he acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood no longer called for a conservative, Islamic state as they did during the 1980s. “They favor a civic [nonreligious] state,” he told me. “People won't accept their old, extremist ideology.”24 The brotherhood continued to be a significant player in the Syrian opposition. Meanwhile, conditions were changing rapidly inside Syria as people took up arms. Let's take a look at some of the major armed groups.
In July 2011, seven Syrian army defectors publically announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). In the following months, the FSA tried to bring under its wing the disparate militias springing up throughout the country. The FSA became the armed wing of the SNC and its successor group, the National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.
The United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar backed the FSA. The State Department officially allocated $15 million to provide nonlethal aid, such as medical supplies and communications equipment, although the actual figure was much higher (see chapter 11). The “nonlethal” category continued to expand until it included pickup trucks, night-vision goggles, and flak vests—a fact exposed when an FSA depot was looted in December 2013.25
The FSA had some initial successes. Affiliated militias captured some towns in the northeast, near the Turkish border. They also took control of towns in central Syria around Homs and Aleppo. But it was difficult to assess the actual popular support for the FSA because local militias frequently changed affiliation. We know for sure that ultraconservative groups grew in strength as the FSA declined.
By the spring of 2012, the FSA faced a crisis. Rebels in the field complained that they lacked effective weapons, such as shoulder-fired missiles capable of bringing down aircraft. The CIA refused to provide such weapons, fearing they would fall into the hands of extremist groups. The CIA and Turkish authorities established a control room in Istanbul to coordinate military activities and funnel arms to favored groups. By controlling the arms flow, the United States hoped to direct the rebellion politically and lessen the influence of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. The CIA still didn't provide Stinger missiles but did improve the quality of assault rifles, sniper rifles, RPGs, and ammo (see chapter 11).
In December 2012 the Free Syrian Army announced the formation of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), which would try to coordinate all the militias in Syria. It was led by Brigadier General Salim Idris. Idris's plain features and receding hairline make him look more like a professor than a general. That's because he's both. His father was a farmer when Idris was born in 1958 in Mubarakiyah, south of Homs. Idris entered the Syrian army, was sent to study in East Germany, and returned with a PhD to become a professor at the Academy of Military Engineering in Aleppo. He taught there for twenty years and became dean. Idris defected to the rebels in July 2012.
In many ways, Idris fit the profile of a pro–United States strongman who could eventually rule Syria. He was a military man who promised free elections, opposed extremist rebels, and remained vague about what kind of government would replace Assad. He courted some powerful American friends. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) sneaked across the Lebanese border into rebel-held Syria and met with Idris. “General Idris and his fighters share many of our interests and values,” the senator said later in a statement.26 Critics disparaged Idris's fighting skills, noting that he showed more prowess meeting with foreign donors than he displayed on the battlefields of Syria.27 As head of the SMC, Idris immediately faced problems.
The CIA and Turkey wanted to focus training on defecting Assad's soldiers. Conservative Islamists considered the defectors traitors if they worked with the CIA. The SMC, which was supposed to be a general command, failed to incorporate the other major armed groups. The SMC became just one more fighting group. “Every time they set up a council to oversee the war effort, it turns into a militia,” wrote one rebel in Deir Ezzor.28
Another group, Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam), formed from the September 2013 merger of dozens of smaller militias, mostly in the Damascus area. It was led by Zahran Alloush, son of Sheikh Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, a well-known Saudi-based religious scholar. The Assad regime released the younger Alloush from jail at the beginning of the uprising, along with other ultraconservative political prisoners. Al-Islam received funding from Saudi Arabia.29
Leaders of al-Islam claimed to be carrying out the principles of Islam. Military decisions are made by a shura (council) consisting of Shariah law specialists, military officers, and Alloush.30 Al-Islam is one of the extremist groups claiming that Syria is being overrun by Iran and Shia Muslims. In a YouTube video, Alloush said, “The jihadists will wash the filth of the rafid
a [a slur used to describe Shia] from Greater Syria, they will wash it forever, if Allah wills it.”31 Al-Islam refused to negotiate with the Assad regime, a stand consistent with other ultraconservative groups. Al-Islam flies the black flag of jihad rather than the Syrian flag.32 At the end of 2013, al-Islam helped form the Islamic Front.
Al-Islam and al-Nusra participated in a massacre of dozens of civilians in Adra, an industrial city just outside Damascus. In December 2013, both groups rounded up Alawites, Druze, and other minorities to execute them with pistol shots and beheadings, claiming they were Assad supporters. “Zahran Alloush has committed a massacre,” one antiregime activist told Reuters.33
Ahrar al-Sham (Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant) was one of the largest militias in Syria. In this context, Levant refers to Syria and Lebanon. Founded in 2011 by ultraconservative former political prisoners, it operated mainly in the Idlib Governate (province) in northwestern Syria next to the Turkish border. It also had fighters in the cities of Hama and Aleppo. Al-Sham is led by Hassan Aboud. Another leader, Abu Khalid al-Suri, admitted to being a longtime member of al-Qaeda.
Al-Sham sought to overthrow the Assad regime and establish a Sunni Islamic state. It differed from some of the other ultraconservatives by acknowledging that Syrians weren't currently willing to accept such a state. So al-Sham urged a go-slow approach. It initially cooperated with the SMC but later broke with General Idris and the US-backed militias.
As an indication of how complicated on-the-ground alliances became, some wealthy members of the Muslim Brotherhood funded al-Sham. That helped create a link between the two groups. But al-Sham also received funding from ultra-right-wing religious leaders in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. By 2012 al-Sham broke with the brotherhood politically and ideologically.34
In November 2013, al-Sham joined with other conservative groups to form the Islamic Front, which opposed both the SMC/FSA and the al-Qaeda-affiliated groups al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The Islamic Front charter rejected a representative parliamentary system, saying only “God is sovereign.” The charter proclaimed that secularism is “contradictory to Islam.”35 By early 2014 the front emerged as one of the strongest rebel alliances and may have caused the Obama administration to recalculate its strategy in Syria (see next chapter).
Another rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra (The Support Front for the People of the Levant), was initially funded and armed by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, although that was kept secret at the time. The Islamic State of Iraq, also known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, helped form al-Nusra in an effort to expand its influence into Syria. But al-Qaeda operates more like a franchise system than a centrally controlled group, and as we'll see below, even al-Qaeda's top leader can't control the franchises.
Al-Nusra is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who had fought against both the United States and the Nouri al-Maliki government in Iraq. Rather than support a parliamentary system, al-Nusra advocated a religious regime that would implement a harsh interpretation of Shariah. Al-Nusra “has a plan to consult Muslim scholars to establish the rule of Islamic law,” Jolani told the New York Times. “We want the Islamic Shariah to prevail.”36 An al-Nusra spokesperson was even more explicit during an interview with CNN: “In the period after the regime falls, our main goal is to create an Islamic state that is ruled by the Koran,” he said. “It can have civilian institutions, but not democracy.”37
In December 2012, the US State Department put al-Nusra on its list of terrorist organizations because of its ties to al-Qaeda. Other rebel groups, including those backed by the United States, strongly objected, arguing that al-Nusra played an important military role in the fight against the regime. The SMC-affiliated militias continued to cooperate with al-Nusra in the field.
But within less than a year, rebel criticisms of al-Nusra began to surface publically. In May of 2013, Ahrar al-Sham issued a statement, posted on its webpage, criticizing al-Nusra for sectarianism and weakening the rebel cause by openly affiliating with al-Qaeda. Al-Sham said al-Nusra was going too fast toward creating an Islamic state and lacked the legitimacy to provide Islamic rule. The statement “is written in the tone of honest advise for an ally who has committed a damaging mistake,” according to Syria expert Aron Lund.38 Within a few months, al-Sham broke with al-Nusra altogether.
By far the most extreme of the major Islamist groups is the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), sometimes translated as Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (known as Da'aash in Arabic). It's headed by an Iraqi rebel named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was initially affiliated with al-Qaeda. The group began in 2007 in Iraq as part of the ultra-right-wing movement opposed to the United States occupation of Iraq but also calling for an Islamic state. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (ISI), as it was then known, was largely defeated during the US-Iraqi “surge” in 2007 and 2008. ISI had alienated itself from fellow Sunnis by killing and torturing other anti-US rebels with whom it disagreed. The US State Department labeled Baghdadi a “Global Terrorist” in 2011 and offered $10 million for his capture.
After the US Army withdrew from Iraq in 2011, the Maliki government in Baghdad alienated many Sunni groups by trying to monopolize power. ISI became reinvigorated. When the Syrian uprising turned toward armed struggle in 2012, ISI set up shop on both sides of the porous Iraq–Syria border and changed its name to ISIS.
ISIS had some military successes against the Syrian army. Using fighters and weapons smuggled from Iraq, it was able to capture several towns. It played an important role in overrunning the Mennagh military airport outside Aleppo in August 2013 after a nine-month siege. ISIS received financing from wealthy gulf donors; from businessmen in Anbar, Iraq; from border tolls; and by “taxing” Syrians in areas under its control. ISIS provided protection to Christians, for example, provided they paid money to ISIS leaders.
In April 2013 Baghdadi formally announced the existence of ISIS and claimed that he had merged al-Nusra and ISIS, which would have created one of the largest political-military groups in Syria. Both ISIS and al-Nusra called for a transnational Islamic state governed by a strict interpretation of Shariah law. Both have reputations for opposing criminality and corruption, unlike some of the SMC brigades. ISIS tried to win hearts and minds by, for example, establishing bakeries and selling bread at below black-market prices.
But al-Nusra criticized ISIS's sectarianism and its desire to dominate the entire movement. ISIS saw itself as an established state on the way to forming a united Muslim caliphate in Syria and Iraq, not just one rebel group among many. Al-Nusra took a slower approach, realizing that it had to build support over time to achieve the same goals. Baghdadi's announcement of the proposed ISIS–al-Nusra merger reflected the arrogance and sectarianism of ISIS. “It is time to announce to the Levantine people and the whole world that Jabhat al-Nusra is merely an extension and part of the Islamic State of Iraq,” Baghdadi said.39
Rifts appeared immediately as al-Nusra continued to use its own name and fight under its own banner. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri sided with al-Nusra and criticized ISIS. By the end of the year, the proposed merger had fallen apart as al-Nusra and other rebels took up arms against ISIS. In February 2014, Zawahri formalized the split by cutting ties completely with ISIS.40
Both al-Nusra and ISIS attracted a large number of foreign fighters, but ISIS has the reputation for being almost exclusively composed of foreigners. While the leaders and special forces are largely foreign, ISIS foot soldiers are mostly Syrian. Nevertheless, ISIS appeared to be fighting fellow rebels more than the Assad regime. In various northern and central cities, as well as in Aleppo, ISIS seized the headquarters of other rebel groups. It detained, tortured, and murdered some of the leaders.
Meanwhile, ISIS stepped up activity in Iraq. It took advantage of the increased unpopularity of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and seized the city of Fallujah. In June 2014, ISIS, along with Sunni allies, took over the city of Mosul and several crossing points near the Syrian and Jordanian borders. ISIS changed
its name yet again, this time to the Islamic State (IS), and declared the existence of an Islamic caliphate that stretched from Syria to Iraq. The IS continued its sectarian attacks on other rebels in Syria, insisting that they join IS as the only legitimate revolutionary group. Syria's internecine fighting and extreme right-wing ideology was hurting the rebel cause. But nothing would impact the rebel movement like the chemical-weapons controversy, as we'll see in the next chapter.
The videos shocked the world. Hundreds of bodies lay on the floor of makeshift morgues in and around the town of Al Ghouta on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus. Early in the morning of August 21, 2013, sarin gas killed hundreds of men, women, and children. Survivors reported seeing rockets hitting the ground and then spewing out a strange, green mist. Victims suffered horrible deaths, going into spasms and gasping for air. The videos, produced by the rebels, blamed the Syrian army.
The world reacted with anger and indignation. The Obama administration strongly condemned the Assad regime and over the next few weeks prepared to bomb Syria in retaliation. The Syrians had crossed the “red line” created by the administration on the use of weapons of mass destruction. The rebels hoped the American bombing raids would destroy Assad's air force and lead to an opposition victory.1
But not everyone accepted the administration's claims. The Assad regime argued that the rebels, not the government, had fired the chemical weapons in order to provoke a US assault on Damascus. UN weapons inspectors eventually issued two reports on the use of chemical weapons. Investigative reporters cast doubts on some of the Obama administration's claims. The controversy deepened over time.