(Tracey Shelton/GlobalPost)
(Tracey Shelton/GlobalPost)
(Photos: Tracey Shelton/Global Post)
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The horrific pictures show that in Syria, death can come in an instant.
Syrian rebels relaxing at their post in an alleyway in Aleppo got a call warning of an approaching tank. They grabbed their weapons, but it was too late.
A Global Post photographer filming the men’s daily lives captured the spectacular moment of their death, as an explosion tore through their makeshift camp, leaving only one man alive.
But after the smoke settled and the flesh was mopped up, new fighters took their place.
The images show how violent war-torn Syria has become, as the nearly 18-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad rages on with no end in sight.
Aleppo, in northwestern Syria, 193 miles from Damascus, had been relatively unscathed for most of the revolt, but is now a main battleground in the civil war.
Both sides are locked in a stalemate despite the Assad regime’s superior military powers.
Yesterday, opposition solders, outgunned and fighting air attacks by the government, tried to gain control of a key army base but were pushed out by Assad’s forces.
The Syrian army pummeled Aleppo with artillery shelling as ground forces advanced on three neighborhoods. Amateur videos showed the wounded bleeding on the floor of a crowded makeshift hospital.
At least 148 people were killed nationwide yesterday, including 77 in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and economic center.
The army claimed victory over the rebels in a fierce 20-hour battle for Assad’s Hanano army base — destroying six armored vehicles opposition forces were using to transport arms stolen from the barracks.
“The rebels had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into this offensive because they desperately need weapons,” an army official told AFP.
As opposition fighters scramble for artillery, Assad’s army has increasingly turned to warplanes and helicopters. Several of those government planes have been shot down in recent weeks.
The use of air power, a major turning point in the war, is also bringing higher civilian casualties.
“First they used bullets, then they used mortars, then they upgraded to helicopters, and now they are bombarding us with warplanes,” Hamza al-Fadel, 28, a tour guide, told the Sunday Times of London.
“They don’t differentiate anymore between the [Free Syrian Army] and the civilians.”
Bombings also destroyed a water main in Aleppo, leaving the city of 3 million with a severe drinking-water shortage as torrents flowed through the streets.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said repairing the pipe was critical “because it provides drinking water to the whole city.”
Yesterday brought more shelling across the country: in the southern province of Daraa, a military airport in Abu Kamal in the east, and a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, where airstrikes killed 10 people on Friday.
But the conflict is also spilling over Syria’s borders.
Mortar rounds crashed into the Iraqi frontier town of Al-Qaim, killing a 4-year-old girl and wounding four people.
The excessive military force to stop what began as a peaceful protest may be costing Assad allies.
Two Syrian diplomats in Malaysia announced late on Friday that they had joined the opposition, according to a report by Arab television channel Al Arabiya.
Even as Lebanon’s government has remained silent on the conflict, a former Lebanese prime minister blasted the regime.
“The self-distancing policy allows the Syrian regime to shell Lebanese villages,” Saad Hariri told the Al-Hayat newspaper, referring to incidents where Syrian forces fired at villages they claimed were harboring insurgents.
Many of Syria’s half-million Palestinians, who stayed on the sidelines when the conflict began, are also now supporting the opposition.
The unrest in Syria began in March 2011, when the army detained a group of children for copying the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt by writing, “The people want to topple the regime,” on a wall.
When their parents protested, security forces opened fire and killed at least four people. Within days, rallies began to attract thousands. As the government cracked down with gunfire, many rebels took up arms.
More than 23,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far. The government says more than 4,000 security officers are among the dead.
At least 250,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, whose refugee count skyrocketed last month.
Many are going to Jordan on foot, treading miles in 100-degree temperatures.
Suheila Salamat, 60, told the Sunday Times of London how she saved her eldest sons, aged 16 and 25, by hiding them from Syrian soldiers looking for recruits.
Salamat dug a 6-foot hole under the porch of her house and covered it with a mattress and cushions. She sat on the pile as the army barged into her home.
“My boys were suffocating below, but I had to do this to protect them, and at the earliest opportunity we packed and escaped and came to Jordan,” she said.
Now she’s facing a new kind of hell.
Zaatari, the fastest-growing refugee camp in the region, with 26,000 residents, is in a barren desert, without water, electricity or sanitation. Refugees aren’t allowed past the perimeters.
“This is not a camp; this is a detention center,” Salamat said.
A group of rebels in Aleppo, Syria were shoring up their position (far left) when warning of a tank attack came — too late. After the explosion, only the man in the foreground survived, mourning a war that has killed 23,000.