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Communal Tensions Simmer In Syria's Aleppo

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  • Communal Tensions Simmer In Syria's Aleppo

    COMMUNAL TENSIONS SIMMER IN SYRIA'S ALEPPO

    Agence France Presse
    October 29, 2012 Monday 9:36 AM GMT

    The Kurdish rebel sits fiddling with his Kalashnikov looking bored
    when a comrade suddenly breaks into screams of "Allahu akbar" as a
    series of explosions reverberate from the front line.

    "Take it easy, take it easy, he can't hear you," says the Kurd,
    sitting next to a pile of broken glass on the street, his jeans
    rolled up to reveal knock-off black plimsolls with the word "PRADA"
    written on the label.

    >From where he stands checking the IDs of civilians crossing the front
    line of the Syrian war in Aleppo he can see the checkpoint of the
    Kurdish militia reviled by many of his comrades in the overwhelmingly
    Sunni Arab, Free Syrian Army (FSA).

    But although he and his comrades say they are brothers fighting
    together to bring down President Bashar al-Assad, at their post in
    the neighbourhood of Bushtan al-Basha they disagree on what a new
    Syria would look like.

    "We need an Islamic government," says 20-year-old Mutassim, before
    his Allahu Akbar chants, his beard wispy and a crocheted white prayer
    cap rammed on top of his head.

    But the Kurd, who does not want to give his name, says he joined the
    rebels to avoid national service in President Bashar al-Assad's army,
    and not to be a "mujahid" like Mutassim.

    Asked whether he wants an Islamic government, he gives an emphatic
    "No".

    "We need a government for everyone," he added. After chatting a bit
    longer, his commander barks across the street for him to go back to
    his checkpoint. He doesn't move.

    One day earlier, clashes broke out nearby between the FSA and Kurdish
    militiamen as Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha, in which one watchdog
    said 30 people were killed.

    The fighting in Ashrafiyeh on Friday was the deadliest such incident
    between Kurds and the armed opposition of the 19-month uprising
    against Assad and came one day after the rebels moved into the mixed
    neighbourhood.

    The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the
    leftist and secular Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that controls the
    area and which professes to be neutral, blamed both the regime and
    the FSA for the violence.

    There are deep tensions between the PYD, which has been seen as
    doing the regime's bidding, and the rebels, seen by the Kurds as
    being influenced by an Islamist agenda.

    But the FSA, which is already overstretched and under armed, can ill
    afford to take on the Kurds, no matter how much their foot soldiers
    bray for revenge.

    -- Change 'after the regime falls' --

    ------------------------------------

    Yussef Aboud, a commander in the Tawhid Brigade of the FSA, said the
    problem had been resolved after the Kurds sent peace emissaries.

    "We don't want this problem again because it will make things very,
    very difficult," he told AFP at his office well behind the frontline.

    He calls the Kurds brothers, but warns that could change in a
    post-Assad Syria. "Maybe in the future unless the PKK corrects their
    mistakes, but if they stay the same, after we finish Assad and his
    army, we will (fight the PKK)."

    Peter Harling, analyst at the International Crisis Group, believes
    such remarks are largely rhetorical given the prospect of defeating
    Assad is still far off.

    Syria's second city of Aleppo is a melting pot for the country's
    ethnic, religious and sectarian communities that for decades have
    lived largely in peace.

    The rebels say they represent all Syrians, but there is little sign
    of Christian, Shiite or Alawite fighters in Aleppo.

    Neighbourhoods controlled by the main rebel faction, the FSA, are
    conservative Sunni areas where no woman is seen on the street without
    skirts to the ground and her head, if not her face, heavily veiled.

    Many have reportedly fled to areas controlled by the regime, where
    there is less risk of being bombed by warplanes or shelled by heavy
    mortars.

    Opposite the Bustan al-Basha checkpoint, a heavily damaged Armenian
    Christian old people's home has long since been evacuated and is now
    in the sights of regime snipers.

    In a deserted side street, the words "The God of Allah" have been
    spraypainted in Arabic on the ground floor of an apartment building
    that houses an Armenian dentist and an Armenian paediatrician.

    In what was a mixed Christian-Sunni street, the only clothes hanging
    out to dry are that of the rebels, many of whom wear black bandanas
    inscribed with the words: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is
    his messenger".

    When asked what would change in a post-Assad Syria, fighters in Aleppo
    often say that they want an Islamic government and sharia law.

    Abu Mahar, who claims to control 200 fighters, said any communal
    resentment was the work of regime propagandists, but went on to accuse
    Christians of not being true Syrians.

    "Christians have no connection with the country," he told AFP in a
    gym turned rebel base elsewhere in the city.

    "We all love Syria, but if anything happens in Syria, they'll run away,
    because the West and the regime tell them that if the rebels take over,
    they'll kill them."

    Harling advises caution, saying that at least for now relations
    between the rebels and the Christians are holding up.

    "It could be much much worse than it is. It's not an all-out
    confessional civil war. This is not Lebanon yet. It could be, but I
    think they're very different societies," he told AFP by telephone.

    Back at the Bushtan al-Basha checkpoint, 20-year-old Kutayba insists
    there is no incompatibility between an Islamic government and Syria's
    rich tapestry of minorities.

    "No I don't think they (minorities) will be happy (with an Islamic
    government), but that's what'll happen. We won't hurt them."

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