Syria
A protest in the village of Maaret al-Naasan in Syria's Idlib province on May 1, 2020, to protests against a reported attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a day earlier. Photo: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Anger is growing among Idlib residents against rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after security forces killed one man and injured several civilians protesting against the faction.
Saleh al-Mrie, 41, died in hospital from major blood loss after he was shot by HTS militants dispersing a protest on Thursday in Maarat al-Nasan, local media Halab TV reported. Another wave of protests followed the both following two days.
Locals were holding a protest on Thursday against the opening of a commercial border that would link areas controlled by the Syrian regime to rebel territories controlled by HTS when its fighters opened fire on crowds blocking the road.
HTS, the Islamist rebel faction which grew out of the Syrian wing of al Qaeda, effectively controls Idlib, one of the last holdout enclaves outside the control of the Syrian regime. The proposed border crossing was to allow badly-needed trade of commercial goods between the warring territories, and provide HTS with a key source of income from taxes levied on goods.
Locals in Idlib, who number more than three million and are trapped with to place to flee, opposed the opening of the crossing, arguing that it would normalize relations with the regime of Bashar Assad, and allow HTS to continue to profit from extracting revenue from the population they rule over.
"This is a criminal regime that killed us, killed our children and raped our women. Why would we open a crossing with them?" said Alaa Kara Ali, speaking to Rudaw English via WhatsApp.
Protests against HTS are rare, but not unprecedented. Though the rebel enclave has endured nearly incessant Russian and Syrian air strikes, Idlib’s residents — many of whom have been forced out of their homes in other parts of Syria when Assad’s forces recaptured their cities — have held up protests against both the regime and rebel factions that would, too, be their oppressor.
Beyond the political ramifications, they also expressed fears that allowing entries from government-controlled Syria would bring with it the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"Are people's lives that cheap for them? Down with the oppressors and these crossings," protester Nizar Hamadi told an AFP cameraman at the protest Maarat al-Nasan. “How do they gamble with the lives of four and a half million people. Everyone including the US and China could not contain the coronavirus, how is it acceptable to allow this here when we don't even have hospitals?” continued said.
The protest took place in the western Aleppo countryside Thursday along the flashpoint M4 Highway, which has seen clashes in recent weeks amid multi-pronged tensions, aimed both at HTS and at Russian and Turkish peacekeepers patrolling the area to enforce a ceasefire agreement. Bilateral patrols on the M4 highway, which links the regime-controlled city of Aleppo with the Latakia coast, are part of Russia and Turkey’s efforts to uphold a ceasefire agreement in the region.
Video posted to social media show security forces plowing a vehicle into a crowd of men assembled near a pile of burning tires, before the rapid cracking of machine gun fire sends the crowd scattered and fleeing. al-Mrie is seen being lifted by a group of five men who return under machine to carry him off to be taken to hospital, where he passed away.
This is what happened 2day in Maarat al Nasaan where HTS has been trying to open a “trade only” crossing with the regime in Miznaz. Locals have been rejecting opening the crossing. Today the issue reached a breaking point with shots fired on the protesters. #Idlib is a powder keg pic.twitter.com/uYsNfPUDET
— Obaida Hitto (@ObaidaHitto) April 30, 2020
The HTS-administered National Salvation Government issued a statement Thursday evening saying it was "saddened" the protester was killed and that security forces fired in the air to disperse the crowd. It also temporarily suspended the decision to open the commercial border crossing.
Control over border crossings is a lucrative business and key source of income for the warlords who control Syria. Both rebel and regime areas are experiencing hard economic times, as inflation has spiraled out of control in recent months. The Syrian Pound has continued to slide even after losing 40 percent of its value in 2019, badly squeezing the average family’s purchasing power, and necessitating more goods to be imported.
Protests against HTS are not new. The rebel group saw its local support greatly eroded after widespread demonstrations against the murder of activists critical of the rebels shattered its veneer of popular support as a bulwark against the regime. The latest wave of protests has gone on for weeks, and stems from frustrations that the promised benefits of acquiescing to Turkish-Russian negotiations failed to materialize.
“Civilians in Idlib have protested against HTS and before that, Jabhat al-Nusra for many years, but this is the first time they are protesting against HTS’ securing and taxing trade with the regime areas,” explains Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Syria researcher and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
“It should be noted that all factions in Idlib have operated crossings with the regime for trade and commercial purposes. But since taking over Idlib in 2019, HTS is now the sole faction operating such semi-official commercial crossings,” Tsurkov told Rudaw English.
HTS and the Salvation Government lack popular support for many reasons, Tsurkov continued, “[there is] is a very common perception that HTS is not serious about fighting the regime. In addition, the Salvation Government is extracting high taxes from the population, something they cannot afford. The overwhelming majority live in abject poverty, and now the opening of a trade crossing is perceived to be helping the regime and large traders at the expense of Idlibis,” Tsurkov says.
The two have clashed for weeks, with the latest round of escalation coming when Turkish forces retaliated for attacks attributed to HTS by opening fire at a sit-in that blocked the M4 highway on April 26. The same day. a Turkish drone strike killed two members of HTS and the injured of three others in the same area, between the districts of al-Karama and al-Nayrab.
As Saleh al-Mrie was being buried on Friday, his funeral broke out into a small protest against HTS, local sources told Rudaw English. Men gathered at the burial site shared emotional memories that grew into speeches. One man present called the group “traitors and murderers” and called on his son, a member of the group to foreswear them. Another man directed his anger at the group’s leader, Mohammed al-Jolani. In a video sent to Rudaw English by a local present at the funeral, the elderly man emotionally gesticulates: “We hate you, we hate you… If God loved someone then he would make people love him, and if he hates someone, he'd make people hate them. We hate you, Mohammed al-Jolani.”
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