As we are about to go to bed, Fury or our host, I forget which, explains to us that the FSA plans to attack Army positions tonight; the counterattack will no doubt be violent, with the city being bombed and perhaps an incursion and door-to-door searches: so we should be ready to run for it, at any time.
Finally a calm night, aside from Kalashnikov volleys fired from posts around the hospital, in the air and at neighboring houses apparently, to intimidate people. The planned attack didn’t take place, nor did our anticipated evacuation, we were able to sleep all through the night. Around 3:00 or 4:00 AM the electricity came back, and all the neon lights with it. The only one awakened, I was the one to turn them off.
Heavy, elaborate dreams, I shyly meet Michel Foucault, not in great shape but still alive, and try to set up a lunch with him. Streets. The cracks in the asphalt are full of coins, some as big as 2 euros. At the university I have swimming class, but don’t know if I manage to make it.
[Discussion with some visitors.] Around al-Qusayr, four or five days ago, the BMPs17 and BTRs were replaced by T-62s and T-72s.18 They’re not very visible, more or less hidden, because of the agreement with the Arab League, but they’re there. The FSA thinks it’s in anticipation of an assault. One man: “People are very afraid, they fear the Army.” For him, the presence of the FSA makes not only our visit possible, but also the demonstrations, the burials. Previously, the security forces patrolled, entered houses, arrested people.
Fury says: the groups in Homs don’t want any more journalists and have agreed on that. We’ll be the last group, after, khalas, finished. He doesn’t really know why: anticipation of a big attack, the death of Gilles Jacquier?
For Fury, Ra’id explains to me, we are on amana, a term that could be more or less translated as “deposit”; he is responsible for us up to Homs.
Our host, yesterday, sent his wife and children home to her parents. “So as not to disturb you, so we’d be at ease.” In any case women are invisible. A world of men. From time to time you see a woman in the street, veiled but with her face showing. Yesterday Fury, in the car, spoke with the mother of a martyr, and with the wife of D., the boy from Tripoli. At the demonstration a few women stood to one side, in a group, near a gate, singing too, but apart from the men.
Arrival of an FSA officer, Abu Hayder, a mulazim awwal and native of al-Qusayr. Jeans, military jacket with markings (two stars), thick beard, worker’s hands. He served for six or seven years in the Army. At the beginning of the events he was based in Dara‘a. He had more or less believed the party line – that of a conspiracy against Syria – but soon came around. He deserted in August, during Ramadan, but without announcing it officially on TV. A friend of his had been wounded, by some shabbiha, during a peaceful demonstration in which he took part. He brought the friend to the emergency ward, but he died. At that time the hospital was still functioning. At the hospital, his dead friend was filmed, then shown on Dunya TV,19 and presented as an innocent demonstrator killed by terrorists. This lie revolted Abu Hayder and was the trigger for his desertion. At that time, there was no FSA in town.
Abu Hayder had belonged to a special unit of the Administration of Chemical Warfare; he was in charge of firing colored smoke bombs from a special vehicle on to buildings that needed to be spared during shelling, to “mark” them.
Asserts that around August, he witnessed aerial bombardments of civilian habitations and the population (demonstrators) in Dara‘a. There were already units of deserters, the future FSA, and the Army was prevented from intervening, so they sent planes.
Fury is going to take us to the the autostrad, where Abu Brahim will send someone to pick us up to take us directly to al-Bayada. Whereas this morning it was again planned that we would enter the city through Baba ‘Amr, they again categorically said no. Energetic conversations on the cellphone. Yesterday, al-Bayada and al-Khalidiya were shelled by tanks, which is rare. Very tense situation.
FSA in Baba ‘Amr convinced that the shabbiha and the security forces are going to target foreign journalists in order to boost the official case for terrorism. That’s why they don’t want us there. They think it’s too risky.
Furious discussions on the phone with Abu Brahim, constantly cut off, to arrange the rendezvous on the autostrad. Abu Hayder talks with the loudspeaker on, he yells and waves the phone in front of his mouth.
D.’s cellphone: photos of babies, of friends, of summer expeditions where people smoke narghiles by the river’s edge, of an Uzi with silencer, of a camouflaged pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on the back, of a spanking-new Mercedes …
The negotiations continue. Abu Brahim’s plan is impossible: too far, too dangerous. We have to enter through Baba ‘Amr, there’s no choice. The people there agree, but only if they can transfer us right away to Abu Brahim.
Noon. Visit to an FSA farm with Abu Hayder. A dozen men in uniform, most of them wearing balaclavas, with AKs. A white pickup, Toyota Hilux, with a 14.5 mm dushka mounted in back, and stickers of the al-Faruk katiba on the doors. The guys pose for a photo with a flag, the dushka, and some RPGs, in balaclavas or keffiyehs.
Then they pose again in the farm, all wearing balaclavas, with their weapons and the katiba sticker. A feeling of novice guerillas; novices in PR, above all.
Abu Ahmad, who commands the north zone of al-Qusayr. An officer who deserted, a mulazim.20 Thick beard, moustache shaved, Islamist-style. He had quit the Army before the uprising, because of a personal conflict, and joined the FSA at its start. In April already, they were trying to organize themselves militarily, but there weren’t yet any confrontations.
They have contacts with ex-soldiers and with active officers. Many accomplices in the Army, sympathizers, officers who help them, especially by providing them with ammunition. They obtain half their ammunition that way. Abu Hayder was able to desert thanks to such complicities.
The naqib21 who founded and commanded the katiba was named Abu ‘Abayda. He was killed on September 28. A soldier shows me a video of his corpse on his cellphone.
I am also shown a video of the entrance of T-72s into al-Qusayr, on December 16, on tank transports, many of them. Then photos of a destroyed tank. Then a video of an attack on a convoy, several vehicles are burning, an RPG destroys one of them, voices holler Allahu Akbar! All that took place on the 16th, they attacked as soon as the tanks arrived. They say they destroyed three tanks and nine BMPs. The armored vehicles didn’t catch fire right away, and they recovered thirteen corpses of soldiers, along with seven prisoners. The next day, they forced a government driver to take the bodies back to the Army. That’s when the soldiers retaliated by shelling the city, killing thirty.
On the same phone, a photo of Zarqawi with Usama bin Laden. Ra’id: “Where have we landed?” – They laugh: “It’s just that we like them.”
Videos also of their shahids, naked, with only their sex covered. Close-ups on the wounds. Exhibition of the martyred body.
The officers continue: the katiba rarely intervenes. They control al-Qusayr; the checkpoints stay bunkered, and don’t bother them. They attack only during Army operations, when it attempts a maneuver. The Army can no longer arrest people, unless they make a big incursion.
Two months ago, the FSA managed to take the town hall, but the Army returned and dislodged them. For the past two weeks, they’ve had an agreement with the officer in command of the town hall. Out of fear of another attack his snipers have stopped shooting. The FSA move around freely with their pickups; the soldiers see them but don’t shoot.
Here, no one has announced his defection officially. They live at home or want to be able to go home, and don’t want any problems for their families. Hence the balaclavas.
Many deserters who join the FSA, individually or in groups, have themselves filmed with their faces uncovered, with their Army card held in front of them; these films are then put online on YouTube, as proof of the collapse of the Army’s morale and the rise in power of the FSA.
A soldier narrates: he was a raqib22 in Dara‘a, in command of a small Army unit. He witnessed a massacre of eleven civilians next to Laraa, near Dara‘a. The naqib Manhell Slimane ordered the massacre, together with naqib Randi. He claims that only the two officers fired, on their own, without asking the soldiers. No security forces with them. Among the victims, an eleven-year-old boy.
In Dazil, the Army had surrounded the city with 200 tanks, with orders to shoot at any vehicles that left, while the security forces and the shabbiha were killing. He says he fired in the air. Says there were Iranians with the shabbiha – they spoke a foreign language and did the same thing as the others.
His friend, a T-5223 machine-gunner, had received the order to shoot at a roof where there were some civilians, and was liquidated because he refused. He was shot in the back. The soldier himself was with the signals unit a little further on, he didn’t see who fired. His friend was from Homs, his name was Mahmud F.
Another guy is introduced to us as a deserter from the Air Force mukhabarat, a simple soldier. He witnessed how they practiced torture, and deserted for that reason. But he doesn’t show his card, saying it’s at his house.
He says there are several ex-mukhabarat in ar-Rastan. Others fled to Jordan.
On the way back, in the car. Abu Hayder explains that Zarqawi is his idol, because he came to Iraq to confront Iran and the Shiites. Abu Oday, who is driving, moderates: “But here, in Syria, it’s not the same at all.”
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[At the home of Abu Amar.] Meeting with Abu Nizur, the doctor in charge of the medical tent near the border. He speaks a little English. “It’s quiet here. Nearly romantic.”
The doctors who take care of the wounded are followed by the secret police. It’s very dangerous. There hasn’t been a hospital in al-Qusayr for two months, ever since the national hospital was occupied by the Army. That’s when he set up the tent. They receive people with heavy injuries from Baba ‘Amr, and try to transfer them to Lebanon. They also have a big problem with pregnant women, Homs is the only place now where you can do caesarian sections. And the city isn’t always accessible.
The medical unit in al-Qusayr – the one we saw – has been open for two or three weeks. They also plan on opening another one between the town and the tent.
Abu Nizur is a general practitioner, but he has learned a little surgery on the job. “See one, do one.” He can do operations of the abdomen, basic things. The mukhabarat are looking for him, but haven’t bothered his family. He is not paid, but the people and his family help him. He is often so overworked that he doesn’t even ask the names of his patients, and keeps no records. Some days he treats up to twenty patients, and he is alone.
The Army often aims at the head or chest, and some wounded die from lack of care: “Sometimes we see the patient die in front of us, and we can’t do anything.” He can’t do the necessary surgery, or evacuate them to Lebanon. The border is very hard to cross. Sometimes you have to wait an hour or two, sometimes it’s closed. Some patients die on the border itself, others are brought back to the tent and die there. What’s more it takes four hours from the tent to Tripoli, which is often too long.
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3:00 PM. Demonstration. Same place as last night, twice as many people. A hundred or so women as well, together on the side. The same chanted slogans, the same dances in a line, arms on shoulders, to the music of drums. Little babies or children on the shoulders of their fathers, sometimes with a flag. The women sway to the rhythm and clap their hands. All veiled, some with the lower part of the face also masked, a few women wearing niqab off in a corner. Children, including little girls, also chant slogans into the microphone, leading the crowd. Sometimes they’re religious slogans.
Afterwards, a tour of the town on motorbike. The FSA checkpoints for the demonstration, the place where one of the tanks was destroyed, a nail-bomb impact.24 Sunny but cold afternoon, pink tints in the sky, migrating birds wheel in a flock above the houses.
At the crossroads leading off to Lake Qattinah, we are again told about the fighting on December 16. The armored vehicles tried to enter al-Qusayr through this crossroads. The first night, there were six T-62s in a column, without infantry, and the FSA destroyed one of the tanks. Two days later, the Army attempted a second incursion, with two tanks accompanying a pickup truck. The tanks were destroyed and the pickup captured; the six prisoners all joined the FSA.
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[At the home of Abu Amar.] 5:30 PM. Fury arrives with a guy from Baba ‘Amr, Ibn Pedro. He was sent by the neighborhood’s FSA to guide us there. An hour ago, at nightfall, a friend of Fury’s was killed at a flying checkpoint. He was a soldier who had deserted from State Security two months ago. He was in a vehicle with a friend, they managed to turn around and flee through the trees, then on foot, but he was hit in the back by a bullet. It happened in the zone we passed through yesterday, not far from the FSA checkpoint on the bridge, where the smugglers were crossing. The checkpoint guys managed to recover the bodies.
News: there was an observation plane over the zone, with night vision equipment from Iran.
Abu Amar: “The Army is corrupt, it’s an army of thieves, anyone who can pay doesn’t go, only the poor get drafted. It’s an incompetent army, which doesn’t work. All it does is make the Alawite community grow fatter.”
He himself was a non-commissioned officer for three years. Before the events, the Army wasn’t ready, had no sophisticated communications or observation equipment, etc. They’ve had Iranian equipment only since the start of the revolution.
The Army is in a state of complete decay.
6:30 PM. The nurse we met yesterday at the health unit was taken at a checkpoint. By chance, he wasn’t wanted. The center we saw yesterday has already been evacuated, all the equipment taken away.
Ra’id explains the rituals to me: the shahid is not washed, he is buried in his own blood. He is stripped, and at that point often filmed or photographed, to document the wounds, and for memory as well no doubt. Then he is rolled up in a shroud. If possible he is buried after the noon prayers, sometimes they wait till the night after his death. The body is exhibited in front of the wall of the qibla and people pray over it, always standing, without genuflecting, repeating Allahu Akbar ten times with the imam.
9:00 PM. Fury and Ibn Pedro. Jokes about the whiskey we’re drinking, they say they’ll slit our throats. Ra’id: “So it’s true what Bashar says about Salafi terrorists!” Big guffaws. They confirm to us that we’ll be able to enter Baba ‘Amr, but we’ll be the last. The FSA thinks that certain correspondents – two Englishmen? – were regime spies.
During my stay in Homs, I heard this story about journalist-spies in numerous variations. Each time, the nationality varied – Moroccans, Germans, Italians – but there were always two of them. It seems to refer to a specific incident, but I could never get any more details.
Fifteen days ago the Army came here, to Abu Amar’s house, and stole all the mattresses, the blankets, the fuel oil, all the food, and broke the air conditioner. Abu Amar had to buy everything again. Curiously, the soldiers left the television.
Around 11:00 PM, people climb up to their roofs and start the takbir:25 everyone begins chanting Allahu Akbar! You can hear it far away. Inevitably, the Army checkpoints begin firing. It’s like that every night.
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17 Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty, “Infantry Combat Vehicle,” a light Soviet-designed armored vehicle, amphibious and with treads, armed with a 30 mm gun.
18 Heavy Soviet-era tanks.
19 The private TV network of Rami Makhlouf, a powerful cousin of Bashar al-Assad.
20 Second lieutenant.
21 Captain.
22 Sergeant.
23 Medium-sized Soviet tank, a completely obsolete model.
24 Usually, the term “nail bomb” refers to improvised bombs, filled with nails or other pieces of metal, typically used by Afghan or Iraqi insurgents. But the Syrians use the term to designate a type of shell that instead of bursting into fragments, like an ordinary mortar shell, disperses a volley of small pellets, as from a shotgun. I was unable to identify this ammunition, often used in Homs. The wounds it leaves in the body, little round holes, are easily recognizable.
25 The word designates the phrase Allahu Akbar, “God is the greatest.”