" Syria’s
rebel fighters — who have long staked claim to the moral high ground
for battling dictatorship — are losing crucial support from a public
increasingly disgusted by the actions of some rebels, including poorly
planned missions, senseless destruction, criminal behavior and the
coldblooded killing of prisoners. The shift in mood presents more than just a public relations problem for
the loosely knit militants of the Free Syrian Army, who rely on their
supporters to survive the government’s superior firepower. A dampening
of that support undermines the rebels’ ability to fight and win what has
become a devastating war of attrition, perpetuating the violence that
has left nearly 40,000 dead, hundreds of thousands in refugee camps and
more than a million forced from their homes. The rebel shortcomings have been compounded by changes in the
opposition, from a force of civilians and defected soldiers who took up
arms after the government used lethal force on peaceful protesters to
one that is increasingly seeded with extremist jihadis.
That radicalization has divided the fighters’ supporters and made
Western nations more reluctant to give rebels the arms that might help
break the intensifying deadlock. Instead, foreign leaders are struggling
to find indirect ways to help oust Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
And now arrogance and missteps are draining enthusiasm from some of the fighters’ core supporters.
“They were supposed to be the people on whom we depend to build a civil
society,” lamented a civilian activist in Saraqib, a northern town where
rebels were videotaped executing a group of unarmed Syrian soldiers, an act the United Nations has declared a likely war crime.
An activist in Aleppo, Ahmed, who like some of the others who were
interviewed gave only one name for security reasons, said he had begged
rebels not to camp in a neighborhood telecommunications office. But they
did, and government attacks knocked out phone service.
One fighter shot into the air when customers at a bakery did not let him
cut into a long line for bread, Ahmed recalled. Another, he said, was
enraged when a man washing his car accidentally splashed him. “He shot
at him,” Ahmed said. “But thank God he wasn’t a good shot, so the guy
wasn’t hurt.”"