I had to call several Syrian opposition figures in order to get information about what is happening in the city of Homs. Homs is an important and strategic city. If it falls, it can form the border of the coastal Nusrite state that will inevitably separate from the rest of Syria.
This means that Iran will have another foothold after Lebanon, in Syria. This also means that the eastern coast of the Mediterranean will be controlled by both Iran and Israel. As for Arabs, they will be barred from this coast.
Let me start with what ‘colonel’ Fateh Hasan, commander of the Homs front and also deputy chief of the command of the National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which was recently recognised by countries attending the Friends of Syria Conference as the military arm of the Syrian National Coalition, said.
I tried to quiz the colonel about weapons reaching the revolutionaries as the starting point of our conversation. He, however, interrupted me and preferred to talk about the area around Homs before discussing arms.
“You need to know that 30 percent of the residents of Homs and the surrounding areas are Shias and Nusrites,” the colonel said to me. “These people control the road network around the area. This means we cannot besiege any camp or base because our backs will be without cover. Supply routes are besieged, and this is why it is difficult to bring arms to this area.”
The colonel’s talk was both balanced and concise. He kept returning to the points where we had stopped in the conversation to explain them once more. This gave me the impression that the colonel was a disciplined person who knew what he did and what he wanted to say.
After a long introduction, which I briefly present here, the colonel resumed his talk. He said Homs had become the target after the fall of Qusair.
“Hezbollah, which is present everywhere in Lebanon, is present around Homs and in its outskirts,” Hasan said. “The Abul Fadl Al Abbas Brigade, which is from the Iraqi border, is also present in this area. I think the fall of Homs is only a matter of time.”
I felt some tension in colonel Hasan’s voice when I asked him again about weapons reaching the revolutionaries.
“None of the weapons they talk about has reached our hands,” Hasan said. “Fighting brigades accuse us of hoarding the weapons or even selling them for profit, although we will never do this. But let me tell you how weapons come to us first.”
He said all countries helping the Syrian opposition were giving conditional aid.
“They say this arms shipment must reach this brigade or that,” Hasan said of countries that fund the Syrian opposition. “Sometimes, envoys from the brigades arrive and receive the arms, even before we lay our hands on them. There is clear and direct coordination between the supporting countries and the fighting brigades. But still we get only 20 percent of the arms shipments to be distributed to five parties. Can you imagine this?”
I asked the colonel to name these parties. He said the parties were: The Homs front; the southern front (Damascus, Daraa, Qusair and Swaida); the northern front (Aleppo and Idlib); Al Sharqia (Deir ez-Zor, Al Hasakah Qamishli and Raqqah); and Al Gharbia (Tartus and Latakia).
Hasan said the revolutionaries had few weapons, which were not enough for even one front.
“Even with this, some brigades have more weapons than they need,” he said. “Some of these brigades do not fight without a request from the donor countries. We saw this in Qusair.”
Hasan said one of the brigades, which gets funding from an Arab country, had refused to get involved in the Qusair battle on orders from the funding countries. “If this brigade had taken part in the battle, Qusair would never have fallen,” Hasan said.
“You are a mere post office then,” I told Hasan.
“Yes,” he replied. “Sorry to say, we are a mere post office. If we do not get stronger, we will shrivel up and die.”
He revealed that some Western countries had recently asked revolutionary military forces to send 15 members to the Syrian National Coalition, provided that they did not belong to any brigade or Islamist groups.
“Do you know what this means?” the colonel asked. “It means we will be part of the coalition but lose contact with Islamic brigades active in Syria. The brigades turned down these conditions.”
He said the Islamist brigades were more organised and committed than other brigades, and also the best trained and most effective in general.
I asked Hasan about the role of Al Nusra Front and its funding. He replied that Al Nusra had no presence in Homs and it had its own fronts.
“Al Nusra’s arms come from within Syria,” he said. “It has controlled some oil wells, some state institutions and army warehouses and uses them in fighting.”
Colonel Hasan gave me some idea about the rebel brigades as well as the parties that arm them. These parties range from jihadist Salafis to secularists. He said he wanted to hold back some information about those providing arms because it could cause problems if revealed.
Before I ended my phone conversation with the colonel, however, he asked me to deliver a message to the people of Qatar. I reproduce his message below without any changes:
“Qataris are among the most honest people who have dealt with the Syrian file. But still, Qataris have not given Homs sufficient attention yet. Homs needs lots of arms and ammunition. If Homs falls, it means that the Nusrite state will easily take its stead.”
The other person spoke to me on condition of anonymity. This man was more informed on the situation in Syria, particularly at the strategic level.
He started by saying that arms shipments went to specific groups, but were far from adequate.
Homs was a common concern of all the people I spoke to. Having talked briefly about the shortage of weapons, the last person I spoke to said that revolutionaries in Homs did not have any weapons at all.
“The city is made up of 14 districts where only 4,000 people or 500 families live,” he said. “Revolutionaries make up the rest of the city’s populace. They stayed behind to defend it. Homs is under siege for almost a year now, or specifically since May 2012. Revolutionaries in Homs and its countryside are disappointed. They keep sending messages to Salim Idriss to send them supplies, which never arrive because of the domination of Nusrite and Shia villages along the road.”
He added: “We have a strong feeling that the world wants Damascus and Homs to remain in the hands of the Assad regime provided that the opposition controls the northern parts, in order to get the two parties involved in an exhausting war until they both demand negotiation. We have started hearing terms such as ‘balance of power’ even from officers in the opposition command. This means some officers in the Syrian opposition know about this plan and approve of it.”
This person continued, in a voice full of frustration: “Only one brigade in Qusair had the arms it needed for liberating the city. This brigade, however, did not take part in the fighting because the parties supplying it arms asked it to do so. This is the condition of the Syrian opposition. We do not have any control over the fighting brigades. Financiers run the war according to their whims. (I will not name here the brigade or those who fund it.)
The man said the following before he fell silent: “Syria will be divided into two soon if nothing is done for Homs. Actually this is what the world wants in Syria.”
Homs will fall just as Qusair did, and like all Palestinian cities fell years ago. All this boils down to the weakness and conspiracies drawn up by Arab regimes against the future of some Arab people after these regimes lost all dignity.
Our condolences go to Homs in advance.
