Sama Masoud, Baladi News
Assassinations are not considered a new phenomenon in Syria during its revolution, but the most dangerous on the achievements of the Syrian revolution, which has not been completed, where the phenomenon of assassinations against prominent figures is growing in different regions of Syria, especially in the liberated northern areas.
Probably bombardments cannot be classified under systematic assassinations once and for all, but undoubtedly to put a bomb or an explosive device in someone's car or house, which is the method of assassinations followed within Syria - is included under deliberate systematic assassination.
Military commanders from the first and second ranks are considered, in addition to the journalists, the most vulnerable figures to assassinations.
I tried in this research to shed light on an important aspect of the history of Syria, which I called "Reaping the Unripen Grapes" i.e. rushing to harvest the unripen fruit, which represent projects that have been nipped in the bud.
A glimpse of the history of assassinations in the liberated northern part of Syria
Islamic movement of the Free Men of the Levant (Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya) had the lion's share of the phenomenon of assassinations plaguing the northern part of Syria. The most prominent assassination incident suffered by the movement dates back to September 2014 when 40 leaders were killed.
Islamic movement of Ahrar al-Sham has recently witnessed great assassination attempts swept through its ranks. One of the most important figures who have been targeted is the general director of the military industrialization and his deputy, in addition to the doctor and commander Omar Al-Hajji, director of Al-Reieh Al-Mursaleh hospital. Moreover, an attempt was made to assassinate the leader Abu Muhammed Yahya on (Batbo- Killi) junction in the countryside of Idlib, who is responsible for the immunization department in the movement.
Prior to that, unknown men tried to assassinate Abu Jaber Binnish who took over the leadership of "al-Hussein Brigade, succeeding the movement's "chief of staff" Islam Abu Hussein, who was assassinated in Last April. Furthermore, the official of the manufacturing plants was also targeted, along with the most important cadres of self-manufacturing. An attempt was also made to assassinate the armament official in the city of Jayrud in the countryside of Damascus. It should be noted that most of the operations are carried out either by suicide bombings or improvised explosive devices. Not to mention the bombardment which targeted the movement's camps and resulted in the death of dozens, including military trainers. Moreover, 6 cadres were killed while being on the confrontation lines in the besieged town of Kafriya.
The Syrian media activist Hadi al-Abdullah was subjected to an assassination attempt a few days ago, where an explosive device exploded at his house in the liberated Aleppo which led to some bruises on his body, while his friend Khalid al-Eissa was seriously wounded then died. Hadi al-Abdullah is considered for many one of the first icons of the revolution who have maintained some degree of their revolutionary media work.
The Syrian journalist, Abd Al-Salam Haj Bakri, attributed in an interview with Baladi News the reason behind the spreading of the phenomenon of assassinations in the northern part of Syria to the state of security chaos the region is witnessing. "All of the assassinations are done by the Syrian regime and its Russian allies", he added.
Beyond Assassination
Leaders of factions accuse international intelligence bodies of involving in assassinations, where Labib Nahass, the foreign relations official in the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham, tweeted: "targeting leaders and cadres of Ahrar al-Sham by the regime, ISIS and international intelligence services, has become exposed and reached its peak on the 9th of September 2014. Such parties resort to assassinating people and senior figures, in addition to dismembering the group from inside through security and intellectual penetration along with coups. "
In reference to ISIS, United States and Russia in particular. Military analyses reported that one of the Arab countries was behind assassinating the movement's leaders o in 2014 after attempting to applying independence in the movement's resolutions and neutralizing it from political money.
Russia had set among its objectives dismantling Jaish al-Fatah in which Ahrar al-Sham movement forms 35% according to reports issued by media fronts affiliated to the movement.
United States also considers Ahrar al-Sham movement one of al-Qaeda bodies in the Levant which is carrying out against it a series of assassinations by drones in Syria and Yemen, according to statements from the White House.
The Islamic movement of Ahrar al-Sham is now considered the touchstone in the Syrian scale. All political and military forces are trying to attract the movement to their sides and gain it in the decisiveness equations.
Suspected Cells and Poor Coordination
There are often some enemies who try to fragment the movement from inside through assassinations and this is that the leaders of the movement fear.
Marwan Al-Kurdi, the leader of one of the free army security battalions said in his interview with Baladi News: "Assassinations have been increased lately in the liberated areas against military officers and activists due to the large number of suspected cells of regime forces and ISIS in the liberated areas."
He explained: "The most important reason in breaking through the liberated areas is due to the lack of coordination between the security offices to the operating factions in the northern part of Syria, in addition to the lack of a serious security project that serves to protect the liberated areas of any breakthrough either by suspected cells feeding on assassinations or collecting information and monitoring coordinates for the aviation and artillery".
Abu Yusuf al-Muhajir had denied in an earlier interview with Baladi News the matter of penetration and attributed this to the strength of the movement and the tireless attempts to penetrating it, saying that: "Penetration is unlikely to happen, but observing intensely is closer to reality". He emphasized then that the "movement wasn't penetrated, but the customers are observing the militants and their movements."
The journalist Abdullah Ali says: "There are great suspicions that the assassination of the movement's prince in Aleppo Abi Khaled al-Sury was done in participation with a number of the movement's leaders through facilitating and ensuring its success. The purpose behind this was to get rid of the legacy of the man who was affiliated to Afghanistan and the leader of al-Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri, and all that stage that trigger critical reactions to some countries, namely the United States". Abudllah continues: "It was a matter of suspicion that the sole survival of assassinating the Syrian was Abu Yazan al-Shami, who led the intellectual revisions of the movement and worked on disengaging the movement from (Salafi)".
The military spokesman of Ahrar al-Sham movement Abu Yusuf al-Muhajir denied all this speech by saying: "the movement is definitely not associated with al-Qaeda". He confirmed that Al-Nusra Front, the closest faction to the movement ideologically, is still linked to al-Qaeda despite the movement's advice of breaking this linkage.
Abu al-Majd al-Homsi, the first Lieutenant and leader of the Army of Victory in Hama, said to Baladi news: "the revolution exceeded its time and continued to suffer because of the numerous numbers of factions and their projects. Previously, the enemy was one and the objective was one, but today after the barbarity of invaders, orientations, views, destinations, interests and achievement of goals have been increased. Here you can see the inability of factions to form a security body that can secure the liberated areas and eliminates the clutches of treachery. "
In a previous interview with Baladi News, Abu Yusuf al-Muhajir attributed the growing phenomenon of assassinations to the "weakness in the security aspect," and said: "There is a lack of coordination or even a lack of unity and co-operation between the factions to activate the security aspect, we are military factions and we were so busy in the important and strategic battles we are fighting in Aleppo and the coast, in addition to the expansion of the liberated areas".
He revealed that the movement is working on filling the security gap that led to these assassinations, as everyone feels under observation and a target as he says, considering that an unjustified security negligence.
He explained: "We are preparing a set of mechanisms to avoid the loss of leadership, for example, activating security barriers and continuously conducting security patrols in the liberated areas."
In spite of all the threats surrounding the movement, the history of wars with Islamic movements tells us that in the end major powers will sit on the dialogue table with Islamic movements, as happened with "Taliban" at the end of the last century, or that "terrorism", which is being fought by nations with greater terrorism will rife and echo through the ages.