Taken by storm

[Originally posted at NOW]

Released Saturday after 17 months’ captivity in Syria, Hajj Ali Tirmus tells NOW about the experience and the factors that led to his release

Hajj Tirmus was one of 9 remaining Lebanese captives in Azaz released on Saturday (NOW/Alex Rowell) 

There was fatigue in his eyes and his voice was as hoarse as a sick man’s, but Hajj Ali Muhammad Tirmus was in jovial spirits when NOW met him in his modest Haret Hreik apartment Monday afternoon. Sitting comfortably in a black shirt, jeans, and leather sandals, he cracked jokes with the constant stream of well-wishing visitors and beamed at his wife Mona as she handed out festive sweets and coffee.

“It’s so precious a feeling, it’s undescribable,” he told NOW of his return to Lebanon after seventeen months of captivity in the northern Syrian town of Azaz at the hands of the Islamist "Northern Storm" rebel brigade. As relatives wiped tears of relief from their cheeks, Tirmus recounted his experience as one of the nine Lebanese men kidnapped in May 2012 while returning from pilgrimage to Iran and held in Azaz until a deal was reached over the weekend to exchange them with two Turkish pilots kidnapped in Beirut two months ago.

The group of pilgrims, which numbered over 60 men and women, had been traveling in two buses, and for the first couple of days, the men that were kept by the kidnappers were separated in two corresponding groups. “This scared us. We wondered, ‘Are they going to kill us? Or kill the others?’” said Tirmus.

After a few days, the men were united, but their hopes of release began to decline as the weeks turned into months. “We were continuously promised that our release was imminent. [Northern Storm leader] Abu Ibrahim shook our hands and told us it was coming in a manner that genuinely convinced us. This was the worst part for me. It was like promising a child you’ll give him a toy every day, and never doing it. After two months, we started to think we’d never be freed.”

A typical day, said Tirmus, would consist of telling stories and recalling memories over cups of tea, in addition to praying and reading the Quran. “We complained to them that we had no Qurans to read. So, after some debate among themselves, they went to the local mosque and brought some for us.”

At no point, he said, were they beaten. They did, however, have two major fears at all times. The first was being killed in the crossfire between Northern Storm and Syrian regime forces (of the approximately 60 militants who kidnapped them, Tirmus estimates more than 40 were subsequently killed in combat). The second was falling victim to internal disputes within Northern Storm itself. “They argued frequently, especially over money.” One guard in particular, who was notorious for stealing cash and jewelry from captives – including Syrians – so irked his comrades that a quarrel eventually led to his being killed, said Tirmus.

Indeed, while a multitude of factors were evidently at work, it appears to have ultimately been inter-rebel dynamics in Azaz that made the pilgrims’ release possible. Last month, al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) militants overran Northern Storm’s positions in Azaz, killing a number of their fighters as well as their media spokesman, as a part of a wider campaign to eliminate nominally Western-backed rebel brigades. A statement issued by Northern Storm Monday admitted that ISIS’ “occupation of our bases” compelled the group to “hasten the exchange.” So weakened had the brigade become, according to Syria analyst and Middle East Forum fellow, Aymenn al-Tamimi, that holding on to the captive pilgrims may have simply no longer been feasible.

“Northern Storm has more or less been crushed by ISIS,” al-Tamimi told NOW. “Apparently,” over the past few days, “a number of their fighters have gone over the border to seek Turkish protection.”

Adding to this consideration, Tirmus believed the Azaz clashes led to substantial pressure on Northern Storm from the Turkish government, mindful of the fate of its own citizens held captive in Lebanon.

“Our kidnappers had met with [US Senator] John McCain. In fact, they met him in a room we were once held in for a period. Because of this, [ISIS] considered Northern Storm to be kuffar [infidels]. When they began fighting each other, Turkey started working to release us, because they knew if we were killed, the two Turkish pilots would be killed too.”

“As much as we are against kidnapping and all injustice, we have to say the kidnapping of the Turkish pilots was the reason we were freed. We wish Turkey had worked so proactively for our release from the start,” added Tirmus.

Whatever the reason, Tirmus told NOW he just looked forward to putting the whole ordeal behind him.

“Now I’m going to spend time catching up with my family, friends and neighbors. Then, after a break, I’ll go back to work and my normal life.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Why did al-Qaeda turn on the FSA?

[Originally posted at NOW]

Months of mistrust, power politics, and disagreement over prospective Western intervention have driven recent violence between opposition brigades.

In his address marking the twelfth anniversary of the 11 September, 2001, World Trade Center attacks, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri made a conspicuous addition to his organization’s lengthy list of foes. For the first time, formally included in the “enemies of Islam” umbrella category was the loose alliance of militant Syrian opposition brigades commonly known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), whom Zawahiri denounced as treacherous tools of America akin to the ‘Sahwa [Awakening]’ militias financed by the US to combat al-Qaeda in Iraq. The fugitive warlord vowed to “destroy” the FSA factions with whom al-Qaeda’s fighters in Syria have hitherto tended to cooperate against the Bashar al-Assad regime.

This policy shift coincided with last week’s launch of a so-called “Purification of Filth” (naqi al-khabath) campaign by al-Qaeda’s primary Syrian franchise, the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which the group said would comprise military attacks in eastern Aleppo against rival factions including the al-Farouq and al-Nasr brigades, both of which nominally fall under the command of the Western-backed Supreme Military Council (SMC) led by General Salim Idris. On Tuesday, photos circulated on social media appearing to show ISIS executing a man in public on charges of belonging to a “Sahwa” (i.e. SMC) group. And for more than a week prior to that, ISIS had engaged in fatal clashes with SMC fighters in Deir az-Zour and al-Raqqa provinces.

Hostilities then reached uncharted territory when on Wednesday ISIS violently seized the northern town of Azaz from the SMC’s Northern Storm Brigade, prompting fellow SMC faction Liwa al-Tawheed to send its fighters to “liberate” the town from the jihadists. A ceasefire deal was later negotiated, and the three groups have now divided the territory between themselves for the time being.

Syrian media activists told NOW that while the pretext for the Azaz clashes was ISIS’ objection to a foreign doctor’s presence in the town, it also appeared to be a plain power grab by the al-Qaeda affiliate.

“ISIS members stormed the Azaz civil hospital during a visit by a German doctor from Doctors without Borders, and demanded that the doctor leave the hospital and leave town immediately,” Aleppo-based activist Naqaa Sadeq told NOW. When the Northern Storm Brigade refused this demand, “the takfiris [ISIS] deemed it permissible for them to control all headquarters in Azaz and began invading houses.”

Much the same rationale was behind the al-Raqqa clashes, according to a local activist who would only give his name as Wael. “The first clash between extremist battalions and the FSA occurred in the Tel Abyad area, which controls the border crossing. Since then, ISIS has spread its influence by controlling vital positions in the liberated areas,” he told NOW.

Beyond mere power politics, however, distrust between jihadists and more moderate opposition forces – which has been reported since at least July, when ISIS killed a number of SMC fighters, including a senior commander, in Latakia and Idlib provinces – has recently been aggravated by the prospect of Western military intervention in Syria following the chemical weapons attack in Damascus in August. As the Guardian’s Martin Chulov reported from Aleppo earlier this month, while ISIS fighters vehemently oppose a US-led strike, believing it to be a plot to target them, the SMC’s rebels welcome the idea, with one even adding that he “hope[s] the Americans know where [ISIS’] headquarters are” too.

Accordingly, when the US backed away from its militant posture in favor of a Russian-sponsored compromise, ISIS may have sensed an opportunity to score a hit against their SMC rivals, according to Charles Lister, analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.

“The perceived decline in forceful Western pressure on Assad over the last [ten] days has bolstered jihadist confidence and weakened the image of the core moderates […] by combating moderates currently hostile to them, jihadists may be hoping to nip the problem in the bud,” Lister told NOW.

There is also growing resentment at ISIS and its fellow al-Qaeda surrogate, Jabhat al-Nusra, for their increasingly authoritarian rule over the territories they hold, said Lister.

“Both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have exerted increasingly public levels of social control in northern and eastern Syria in recent weeks and there is no doubt that this has generated frustration within some locally-based moderate groups.”

Among local civilians, too, dissatisfaction with the jihadists has frequently been on display. At a demonstration in Aleppo Friday, residents chanted familiar anti-Assad songs, but with da’ish [the Arabic acronym for ISIS] in place of the president’s name. And on the Twitter social media network, pro-opposition Syrian users widely circulated the slogan “Da’ish does not represent me”.

With rebels now dedicating time and resources to battles against fellow rebels, the question arises as to whether the Assad regime stands to gain militarily. Certainly that is the view of some opposition fighters, who see the descent into rebel-on-rebel killing as handing Assad victory, according to Chulov. Yet Lister told NOW the reality may be more complex.

“So far, incidents of infighting have remained isolated to less active military zones, so the impact on the overall battle against the government has been minimal. However, if this situation expands further, then yes, the military could feasibly benefit, but likely still only on a localized level.”

Doha Hassan contributed reporting.