Rescripted by Popular Demand

"We are starting to attack the government. The regime pushed forward in the north of the city, but the Free Syrian Army caused a lot of casualties and they went back to their bases."
Colonel Abduljuabar al-Oqaidi, Aleppo military council

This Tuesday, June 18, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian rebel shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great)

The rebels are desperate for good news. Their failure to retain Qusayr with the launch of a regime attack heavily dependent on the involvement of thousands of Hezbollah fighters, armed with superior weapons, their numbers and organization and battle skills outweighing those of the Qusayr rebels guaranteed a costly rout.

"My son rang me half an hour before he died and asked me for my forgiveness and to pray for his martyrdom. He said the shelling of the town was really bad", recounted Atta Akrama, father of one of nine men killed in three rebel vehicles that hit a regime minefield. "The firepower was overwhelming. I never saw such a thing in my life", confirmed Colonel Oqaidi.

He had intimate experience of just what occurred in the encirclement and capture of Qusayr by regime forces and Hezbollah. Just before the fall of Qusayr, Colonel Oqaidi and Abdulqader al-Saleh, head of the Tawhid Brigade, representing one of the most celebrated fighters of the revolution, had launched what they planned to be a rescue mission of the embattled town.

It didn't take them all that long to assess the situation. To realize that the superior forces and arms they were facing had the upper hand. They struggled to enter the town with their fighting column only to find the rebels within were planning their withdrawal. "A few of the commanders did not have the will to fight any more. They had lost morale", explained Colonel Oqaidi.

They were prevailed upon to remain, however, and the two groups, those newly arrived and those who had fought desperately to defend the stronghold that had been theirs for almost a year, put up another five days of resistance before realizing they had run out of time and opportunity and were forced to retreat. Taking with them thousands of casualties and civilians, including women and children.

As they withdrew they came under repeated attack as they fell back through fields and orchards. Eventually the Aleppo convoy that had come to the aid of their Qusayr compatriots broke through regime lines under shellfire, to return to Aleppo. Which was the next stop on the regime's agenda. Syrian state media announced almost immediately that "Operation Northern Storm" was set to retake Aleppo "within days".

Thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, and with them Iranian "advisors" moved along with the Syrian military to stand by before beginning their advance on Aleppo. That was to have been completed at the beginning of June. A few regime sallies around Aleppo with Russian-supplied tanks, however, met resistance from the city's defenders, using for the first time, powerful anti-tank missiles, incidentally also Russian-made.

Those new, more powerful weapons had been taken from abandoned Syrian weapons depots which hurriedly departing regime troops left behind after being routed from their posts. And they were augmented by weapons being transferred to the rebels from European and Saudi and Qatari sources. With the guarantee of more yet to come. Finally ensuring a level of confidence returned to the rebels.

Since then, no sign of the major regime advance that had been promised. A new battle launched by the rebels has been named "The Battle of Qadisiyah", in memory of a seventh-century battle where Arabs defeated the Persian empire; reflected now in the inclusion of Iranian Revolutionary Guards al Quds presence among the Syrian military and Hezbollah.

Colonel Oqaidi is confident that when and if the battle for Aleppo occurs, it won't be comparable to the Qusayr conflict. Rebel forces are well entrenched in Aleppo. It's in the Sunni heartlands and Turkey one of the main arms conduits for the rebels, is a mere 40 kilometres away. Qusayr, on the other hand, sits close to Lebanon, Hezbollah's home.

In Aleppo, the rebels are defending home turf.