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Bullets are equally important. When military installations and
warehouses are looted the battalion that captures ammunition grows by
cannibalising smaller, less well-equipped units that have no bullets to
hand.
In a dark apartment in the Salahuddin neighbourhood of Aleppo we
sat with a group of commanders who were discussing the formation of a
new brigade that would bring their various battalions together. They soon
turned to the topic of loot.
One of the commanders present had led an operation into the
predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Ashrafiya in Aleppo, but
according to several fighters who were there the action failed when the
army counterattacked because the rebel support units that were supposed
to reinforce the front instead turned their attention to looting.
"I want to know exactly what you took that day," the commander of a
small unit told the leader of the assault. The commander opened a
notebook to write, while another man held a flashlight above his head. "As
long as one fights while the others are busy collecting loot we can't
advance," he said. "The loot has to be divided equally."
The leader started to list the luxury cars and the weapons his units
had found and taken, while the other commander wrote them down in the
notebook. Some of the cars would be sold back to the owners if they paid
out a hefty ransom.
Outside sponsors
The war in Aleppo is not only funded by what can be appropriated by
the various units, but also by the patronage that they can attract from
sponsors outside Syria, a factor which has also contributed to the myriad
forming and re-forming of units, all of which control individual fiefdoms
in the city.
All of this has fuelled rivalries and ever-shifting allegiances, factors
that have undermined the struggle to defeat the forces of the Syrian
president. Read More
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