Free Syria Army

Sophie Nivelle-Cardinale
Syria, 2012
117 mm x 167 mm

Nawras was the commander of a Free Syrian Army unit in Aleppo when I met him in July 2012. He had chosen Abu Nidal as his nom de guerre. He was in his late twenties and came from the countryside of Aleppo. Before taking up weapons to fight the Syrian regime, he was working in a supermarket.

That summer, the uprising that had started the previous year in Syria became a civil war. In the north, the Free Syria Army launched an offensive to take control of Aleppo, the 2nd biggest city in Syria. The rebels managed to take some districts, but they soon came under constant bombings. The imbalance of weapons was staggering.

I stayed with Nawras and his men until early September. They were trying to advance into the city. At that time, they were still hoping to gain control of all Aleppo. That would never happen.

In the following winter, I joined them in another battleground: Menagh air base in the north of Aleppo. The objective was to seize the base so helicopters and fighter jets would stop taking off and bombardments would stop. By then, Nawras’ men had become more religious, and the dream of victory seemed to be gone. Too many months of war already, too many dead. The regime still had full control of the airspace, and radical jihadi groups were starting to dispute control of rebel areas. “We are all going to die,” Nawras kept on telling me.

His unit had started fabricating their own rockets, and they were proud of showing me how it worked. Six months later, Nawras died when launching one of those homemade rockets.

Nawras’ brother took over the unit, and they continued fighting. By 2014, they were fighting against Islamic State and made them withdraw from Northern Aleppo. By 2015, the few members of the unit who had survived either left the country or joined other armed groups.

All the ones I knew are dead.

In December 2016, the Syrian regime supported by the Russian army gained back control of all Aleppo. But the war continued in Syria for another 8 years.

End of November 2024, rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham and Ahmad Al Jolani captured Aleppo. On December 8, 2024, they arrived in Damascus. In the night, Bachar Al Assad had fled the country. The Syrian regime was over.

 “Avec les combattants de l’Armée Libre/With the Free Syrian Army”
(ARTE, 13min, September 2012)