Expelled from Aleppo as children, these fighters returned as its liberators | Features

Aleppo, Syria When Abdullah Abu Jarrah was thirteen years old, he dreamed of becoming an engineer or a lawyer.

But his city, Aleppo, was besieged by Syrian regime forces, with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah.

“The situation was horrific because of the bombings, beatings and killings,” the 21-year-old told Al Jazeera. “I remember the regime’s massacres, killings, and the bombing of bakeries and hospitals.”

Eight years later, a series of photos went viral on social media. The young people who were displaced by the regime in 2016 returned as fighters to liberate the city of Aleppo. The side-by-side photos showed children boarding buses in one photo. In the next photo, these young men appear smiling broadly, wearing military uniforms and carrying rifles.

On December 22, 2016, a four-year battle between regime forces and their allies against the opposition ended with the evacuation of thousands of opposition forces from eastern Aleppo on buses.

War crimes were widespread.

The Assad regime is besieging opposition areas that include thousands of civilians, while Russian aircraft are bombing hospitals and bakeries. The regime used internationally banned chlorine bombs, according to the United Nations, killing hundreds.

The United Nations reported in November 2016, a month before the battle ended, that eastern Aleppo had no functioning hospitals.

“The brutality and intensity of the fighting has never been seen before,” said Elijah Ayoub, a writer and researcher who covered the fall of Aleppo.

The United Nations also criticized opposition groups for indiscriminately bombing civilian areas to “terrorize the civilian population” and for shooting civilians to try to prevent them from leaving the areas.

At least 35,000 people were killed and much of the city was destroyed by 2016, much of which remains in ruins eight years later. At least 18 percent of those killed were children.

“I thought we would never come back,” Abu Jarrah told Al Jazeera.

Capital of the Syrian revolution

When a peaceful uprising demanding reforms broke out in Syria in 2011, Assad responded with brutal force. The opposition took up arms and challenged the regime throughout the country.

The regime relied on foreign intervention. Hezbollah and Iran joined the fight in 2013, and Russian intervention in late 2015, ostensibly to confront ISIS, pushed the opposition back.

“Symbolically, Aleppo was the capital of the revolution,” Ayoub said. “Its fall was preceded by other cities, and this was the final nail in the coffin of the uprising at that time.”

The city will remain under regime control for approximately eight years. Many of those who fled Aleppo moved to Idlib in northwestern Syria and crowded into displacement camps, where they suffered for years of air attacks by the regime and its allies.

In November, opposition fighters led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army launched an operation to retake Aleppo.

Among the factors in their favor were that the Syrian army was perhaps weaker than ever and that its allies were preoccupied with their own battles – Russia in Ukraine, Iran and Hezbollah with Israel.

“I felt like a human again”

On November 30, the Syrian opposition returned to Aleppo for the first time in eight years and quickly took control of the city.

Among the returning fighters was Abu Jarrah, who joined a faction in the Free Syrian Army when he was 16 years old.

“I felt like a human again,” he told Al Jazeera, his eyes shining outside the city’s historic citadel, wearing a military uniform decorated with the green, white and black Syrian flag with three red stars. “Today is an indescribable joy.”

Standing not far away was Abu Abdul Aziz, another Free Syrian Army fighter who fled the city when he was seventeen years old. He was wearing military fatigues and a black face mask with a skull printed on the front, and carrying a rifle.

He said: “They forced us to leave, displaced us and insulted us. We returned to the place where we grew up, where we spent our childhood with our friends and school.” “It’s a great feeling of great joy. You can’t measure it.”

Abu Abdul Aziz said that the first thing he did when the city was liberated was to visit his old school.

“When I was young, I wanted to become a cardiologist,” said the fighter, who is now 24 years old. But the war inflicted heavy losses on him. His family was killed and his home in Aleppo destroyed. However, he said he wanted to stay in Aleppo and become a doctor.

“Now, God willing, I will complete my studies,” he said.

“We will build this country together”

Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and historically among the most economically important cities in the Middle East. It was ruled by Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Mongols, Mamluks and Ottomans before becoming part of modern Syria. Before the civil war, it was the industrial and financial capital of Syria.

Parts of Aleppo have largely fallen into disrepair. Local residents told Al Jazeera that even before the war, the regime had stopped investing in the city. But very little of the damage from the fighting from 2012 to 2016 has been repaired. Even the crown jewel, the Citadel of Aleppo, was badly damaged and left to rot. Buildings destroyed by air raids are still visible from the foot of the castle today.

Even in the city’s countryside – or its outskirts – entire neighborhoods have become completely deserted. Collapsed roofs and crumbling facades lie behind empty swimming pools while wild dogs roam ghost towns.

Now that the war is over, the fighters returning to the city hope to trade their weapons to help repair their city.

Abu Jarrah said: “If a field of study opens up, I want to continue my studies.” “And we will build this country together.”