'We must unite and retake Aleppo': Ahrar al-Sham says Syrian rebels will endure

Syria's rebels must unite to form a "collective leadership" to defend the revolution and lay the ground to retake Aleppo, a spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham has said in an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye.

The spokesman's comments come days after the city fell under the full control of Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, and Ahrar, a principal group in Aleppo, suffered a potentially devastating split along ideological lines.

Speaking from the rebel stronghold of Idlib, Omran Muhammad said revolutionary groups must unite under a central leadership to prevent further losses, and devise a political programme that can become the rallying cry of ordinary Syrians.

'We must attend to our people before we think about the next battle. We will regroup, and we will go back to liberate the city.'

"We believe in collective leadership. And we don't believe in global jihad," he said of Ahrar al-Sham, which translates as "the free men of Syria" . "Our hope is not in any other country. Our hope is firstly in God, and then in the Syrian people.

"We must attend to our people before we think about the next battle. We will regroup, and we will go back to liberate the city."

Muhammad's bold declaration for unity among disparate rebel factions comes at a time of internal crisis - on 10 December, 16 local factions of Ahrar united to form a new sub-faction called "Jaish al-Ahrar," under the leadership of former chief Hashim al-Sheikh.

MORE: Why Ahrar al-Sham is fighting itself

But rebels must put aside their difference to break the Syrian government's advances and the "disease" of the Islamic State group, he said.

"Islamic State is committed to 'purifying' the world by killing vast numbers of people - they are germs that spread disease in Syria. 

"We don't think bombing European cities will bring any hope to the Syrian cause. It will only make things worse for Syrians." 

"We are not takfiris," he said, referring to Muslims who reject others inside the faith.

Humanitarian retreat

Defeat in Aleppo exposed "organisational differences" between various rebel factions, amid exchange of blame over betrayals and blunders.

Some rebel factions claimed that the government of Bashar al-Assad had received help from other rebel groups, such as the Kurds, while others split after disagreement over foreign support.

However, Muhammad has a more practical reason: rebels were forced to withdraw from eastern Aleppo to alleviate the civilian humanitarian crisis.

"Aleppo is a densely populated urban area with a handful of rebel fighters," he said. "For every move we made, dozens of Russian jets rained bombs on civilians, resulting in casualties and damage to infrastructure.

'There was no food, hospitals ran out of cotton swabs. We had no option but to allow the people of Aleppo to flee.'

"There was no food, hospitals ran out of cotton swabs. We had no option but to allow the people of Aleppo to flee."

Muhammad said that while splits between rebel groups may seem embarassing, they were "perfectly normal" and should be discussed in the open.

"In any democratic movement, you will find people of all shades, ideologies and backgrounds. You think the Americans don't have internal differences? Even the regime and the Russians and the Iranians have internal disagreements. 

"The only difference is they don't tweet about it. We do. We believe these differences are part and parcel of the revolutionary process. We must try to be a democratic revolution, and democracy is all about differences."

Muhammad rejected the Syrian government and Russian line that all rebels were "terrorists" - the lumping together of IS, the Nusra Front, which has recently rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and claimed to have disowned al-Qaeda, and his own was propaganda and nothing more.

"Of course, the regime will want you to think that we [rebels] are all the same, so that the actions of one group are perceived as representative of the whole movement against Assad.

"Just because we all want to topple the regime does not mean that we resemble each other in ideology or values.

"You have to realise this regime has never allowed any opposition to exist. There are no good or bad dissenters in their books – activists, rebels, civilians, terrorists – we are all the same to them."

MORE: Welcome to Idlib, ‘the next Aleppo’

Ahrar has also grappled with accusations of sectarian crimes.

In a video released in April 2012, the group described the Syrian uprising as a 'jihad' against a Safawi plot to spread Shiism and establish a Shia state from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, to Lebanon and Palestine. This video has since been taken offline, but doubts persist to this day about whether Ahrar al-Sham perceives the Syrian conflict as a political struggle or a religious war. 

Furthermore, in April, 2015, reports surfaced that the group was executing Christians in Idlib.

But Muhammad insists that his group has never ordered operations against civilians on the basis of religion or ethnicity.

"Christians are our brothers and sisters, they are fellow Syrians," he said, but admitted: “We are in a state of war, and sometimes you can't stop to ask your enemy, 'are you Muslim, or are you Christian?'"

Muhammad said it was a tough to maintain popular appeal in the face of state propaganda and internal disunity, and he was open to criticism from "anyone but the regime".

He added that the West's fixation with IS had been a disservice to the revolution and overlooked the nuances of the revolutionary movement and turned IS into a propaganda tool in the hands of Assad.

"We see them in fake battles – in Palmyra, for example. Palmyra was given to IS by the regime, and when there was enough international attention focused on their acts of barbarism, the regime took it back."

Shifting sands

Ahrar has continued to receive support from Turkey, ties that Muhammad said had not weakened since Ankara's rapprochement with Moscow, the principal ally of the Syrian government.

Despite such drastic developments, Muhammad said his group's faith in Turkey remained intact. He cited strong filial, religious and cultural ties as the bonds maintaining a strong degree of continuity across policy shifts in Turkey.

Ahrar initially expressed its aim as the complete "overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria" and the creation of an "Islamic state whose only sovereign, reference, ruler, direction, and individual, societal and nationwide unifier is Allah Almighty's Sharia [law]".

'We don't want to change Syria. We simply want to topple the regime, and bring to justice the people who have committed crimes against the Syrian people.'

That has however changed: Muhammad said the group did not have a political plan set in stone and was open to discussion about rebuilding Syria post-Assad. 

"We don't want to change Syria. We don't want to change its demographic outlook. We simply want to topple the regime and bring to justice the people who have committed crimes against the Syrian people."

When asked whether the group would accept the model of federalism supported by Kurdish groups such as the People's Protection Units (YPG), Muhammad said the group would consider all options as long as it did not mean an ethnic fragmentation of Syria. 

"The Kurds are part of the Syrian family, and we are fighting to keep this family together. If we give them a piece of land today, tomorrow we will have to give some land to the Shias, and then someone else and so on.

"If we do this, soon there will be no more Syria left. So what did we fight for then?"

In May, 2016, Amnesty International accused armed groups including Ahrar al-Sham of carrying out indiscriminate attacks against the Kurdish population in the Sheikh Maqsood district.