DAMASCUS/AMMAN/BAGHDAD –
Twenty-three-year-old Syrian military conscript Farhan al-Khouli was badly paid and demoralized. His army outpost in scrubland near the rebel-held city of Idlib should have had nine soldiers but it just had three, after some had bribed the commanding officers to escape serving, he said.
And of the two conscripts with him, one was regarded by his superiors as mentally unfit and not trusted with a gun, Khouli said.
For years, the Islamist rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had sat behind the nearby front line, with Syria’s long civil war frozen. But on Wednesday, Nov. 27, Khouli’s commanding officer — at another post behind the front lines — called his mobile phone to tell him a rebel convoy was heading his way.