Syria Diaries: Sectarian enmity in Aleppo province

A farmer in Bayanun stands beside a shell case in his garden that he says was fired from the neighbouring

 town of Nabul. Tensions between the formerly amicable communities have been pushed to breaking point

 by Syria's civil conflict. Bayanun, Aleppo district, Syria, March 2013.

Staying in the FSA controlled towns of Bayanun, Hayyan and Mayer, approximately 15km from Aleppo, BEIRUTSTATEofMIND  recently observed how sectarian tensions have begun to develop between the three aforementioned Sunni towns and their Shia neighbours in the regime controlled towns of Nabul and Zahraa - bastions of pro-Assad sentiment in an area that has been under opposition control since Summer 2012. 

BEIRUTSTATEofMIND spoke to characters including Bashar Hajj, a former mechanic and member of the Nasr brigade whose Shia wife was kidnapped by her own pro-regime family; Abdul Rahman Ali, a former Baath Intelligence Officer rallying against a regime policy that favoured Alawites and Shia at the expense of Sunnis in the appointment of government and military positions; Mustapha Outroo, whose older brother was brutally killed by Shabiha from Nabul whilst buying ammunition for the FSA, members of the Islamist militia - Jabhat al--Nusra patrolling the periphery of the village of Mayer lying only 1km from Nabul, in addition to others including school teachers whose Shia colleagues are no longer able to make the short journey to work each day, and two hostage negotiators working at great personal risk to bridge gaps between the estranged communities.

The results of Government shelling in the Qoreitem neighbourhood of Hayyan, Aleppo District, Syria, March 2013.

Whilst locals in Hayyan, Bayanun, and Mayer were quick to point out that they traditionally enjoyed an amicable relationship with their Shia neighbour it is clear that the civil conflict has shattered this dynamic. Such is the isolation of Nabul and Zahraa that regime helicopters fly in supplies to the communities everyday. In the streets of Bayanun it is not uncommon to hear rumours that Lebanese Hezbollah operatives are active in the Shia towns, working in tandem with local Shabiha.

As the Assad regime has continually vilified the Syrian opposition as a foreign-influenced Al-Qaeda esque Sunni movement in order to vouchsafe Alawite and Shia support, a sectarian counter-framework has been established with which both civilians and members of the armed opposition increasingly view the conflict.

Abdul Rahman Ali, a former Baath Intelligence Officer, who left his position after expressing objection to the Hama massacre of 1982, stands outside his former home -destroyed by government shelling.
Hayyan, Aleppo province, Syria, 2013.

Residents in Hayyan, Bayanun,and Mayer see Syria’s civil war for its international dynamics in which Bashar al-Assad is viewed as part of a Shia triumvirate aligned with Hezbollah and subservient to Iran. 

Walking through Bayanun the most common message graffitied on the town’s streets reads : “Leave Iranian Dog.” Others read “Hizb al-Shatan” (The Party of the Devil), a derogatory reference to Hizbullah. Such messages are scrawled on streets throughout towns in Aleppo.

As sectarian lines are increasingly drawn in Syria’s civil war one wonders whether the sentiments expressed in such tags in Bayanun and Hayyan are by association increasingly extended to the Shia inhabitants of Nabul and Zahraa. In part raising concerns qabout where Syria's Alawites and Shia will fit into a post-Assad Syria.

An FSA gunmen stands on the outskirts of the opposition controlled town of Mayer, 1km from Nabul.
Mayer, Aleppo Province, Syria, March 2013.

Such dynamics are worrying portends not only in Syria but also in Lebanon with the political dividing line so clearly drawn along sectarian lines. Intermittent clashes between Alawites and Sunnis in the Tripoletan neighbourhoods of Bab al-Tabaneh and Jabl Mohsen have been blowing hot and cold since June 2011, with a recent emergence of a spate of tit-for-tat kidnappings pitting Shiites against Sunnis in the north of Lebanon marking a further worrying development of overspill.

To read the article penned by BEIRUTSTATEofMIND during our stay in the Aleppan countryside, hit the below link:

Standing outside the secondary school of Bayanoun, a town in northwest Syria on a sunny Monday morning, headmaster Mahmud Bayanuni ushers a couple of latecomers into the school building. Other pupils can be seen preparing for the day’s lessons from the street through a large hole in the side of the school building—the result of government shelling that ripped through the concrete structure in January.

“Last year I used to drive to Nubl every day to collect four teachers and then return them to their homes in the evening,” says Bayanuni. “Now it is impossible. It is too dangerous, and the teachers are too scared.” 

The cities of Nubl and al-Zahraa are less than three miles from Bayanoun. Both are majority Shia and are bastions of pro-Assad supporters in an area otherwise controlled by the opposition Free Syrian Army, who took control of most of the Aleppo province in July 2012. Government helicopters visit the isolated towns three times a day, bringing in troops and food supplies. Rumors are rife in Bayanun, a majority Sunni town, that Hezbollah operatives, aligned with the Assad regime, have also been flown in to train the local civilian militias called shabiha. Those claims have been flatly denied. But that hasn’t quelled local tension between Sunnis and Shia. Further upsetting the already war-torn landscape, a spate of tit-for-tat kidnappings is driving a wedge between once peaceable communities.To continue reading, hit the link, HERE.

Members of the Free Syrian Army pray beside a burnt-out government tank on the outskirts of the town of Bayanun, Aleppo District, Syria, March 2013.