Q & A: In conversation with the Free Syrian Army about Aleppo
Injured civilians have been massacred inside treatment centers, bodies are lying in the streets, and civilians are trapped with no way out. The FSA’s Asaad Hanna says the global community is complicit in the crimes unleashed on Aleppo’s civilians.
Author: Shaheryar Mirza
Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad’s forces now hold more than 90 percent of the one-time opposition stronghold of eastern Aleppo, and appear on the verge of retaking the entire city. Assad’s forces and allied militias on Tuesday took control of all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat from the city, according to the Syrian regime.
The siege of Aleppo intensified in scale and brutality in October and by November rebels started suffering major territorial losses. The gains by the Syrian regime have been consistently referred to as “the fall of Aleppo” but the FSA has said in the past that cities have fallen, only to be recaptured by rebels at a later time.
TRT World spoke to Asaad Hanna, a political officer for the FSA based in Istanbul, who reveals that the situation in eastern Aleppo is worse than anything Syria has experienced since the start of the revolt against Bashar al Assad in 2011.
What do your friends and Free Syrian Army fighters see happening in Aleppo right now?
ASAAD HANNA: The situation in the last 24 hours until this moment — yesterday was a very insane, crazy day. Huge and aggressive attacks from the regime on eastern Aleppo — a small area — which has about 150,000 civilians. Our friends there and our fighters there in this area have told us that each building has around 1500 civilians. The air strikes and attacks in Aleppo, each bomb can kill hundreds of people, and that’s what happened. All the hospitals are out of service because of the attacks during the last month [since November 15th when the latest round of attacks started]. There is no medical in eastern Aleppo, there are some doctors but they cannot do anything for the people because they don’t have any supplies so anyone who has been injured will most likely be killed in eastern Aleppo.
The attacks have been very strong and there are a lot of civilians and many bodies in the streets, all the night, because of the snipers and the air strikes. When people are running [from air strikes] into the streets they are being hit by snipers. The foreign militias Iraqi and Lebanese [Hezbollah] — only 20 percent are Syrian regime soldiers — and Syrian regime fighters started to enter many neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo. We have received reports that they’ve killed many of the people who were hiding in their homes and neighbourhoods. More than 80 people last night were executed by these militias. They were shot.
We also received reports from a nurse in a medical house [al Hayat Hospital] that foreign militias entered so people inside ran out, but the injured could not run out, and when they entered the medical house they killed everyone inside. They were all injured people.
Attacks took place all night and then early morning they became less and stopped. Then at 6AM they started again and then at 1pm or 2pm they stopped, maybe they are taking a break, or I don’t know they will start again probably.
There are bodies in the streets, buildings are destroyed. There are houses with just two rooms which have more than 50 people inside hiding together. Most families have no connections [phone, internet] inside or to outside Aleppo. They are lost.
People are not going to the regime controlled side of Aleppo because they fear them. The regime will arrest and kill civilians, it is not safe there. There are people who came from regime controlled Aleppo into eastern Aleppo to escape the regime.
I have new information I have just received right now that Russia has accepted to evacuate about forty thousand from eastern Aleppo, it has not been verified but that is the report that we have. This is only forty thousand from 150,000.
What will happen to the FSA and the opposition now?
AH: I can’t say what will happen now and it is up to the army generals and the leaders in the [Free Syrian] army to decide how to fight back.
Politically all we can do now is push the global community and tell them that we are hopeless after all of this. For more than one month they were watching as Russian and regime planes attacked Aleppo and they watched the suffering, and we appealed and criticised them all the time.
We ask the global community, and the UN and Washington D.C. to help set up corridors out of eastern Aleppo into the countryside.
We have seen nothing like this in Syria before, there have been very bad moments in Homs and Darayya before but nothing like this. It is a very bad time for Syria.
Our fighters they are trying their best to block the regime but they cannot fight an air force. Our [former] supporters are no longer friends. They are playing a part in the killing, they are silent on this crime therefore they are partners in this crime.
Is this the fall of Aleppo?
AH: We cannot say “Aleppo has fallen”, for this situation. All the fighters are still there. Maybe they can change the game or turn the tables at the last minute. We are trying to push to open safe corridors for civilians. If we withdraw from Aleppo then it will not have “fallen”. Falling comes after fighting, this, would be giving. If we withdraw from Aleppo we will be giving it to the regime, or withdrawing, but it will not be the “fall of Aleppo”. It hasn’t happened so far.
