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Rural fighters pour into Syria’s Aleppo for battle
Rural fighters pour into Syria’s Aleppo for battle
By Erika Solomon
Reuters / Aleppo
The route to Aleppo from the Turkish border is a long web of dirt back roads with miles of exposed ground. But undaunted and in total darkness, dozens of young men jump onto white trucks with their AK-47 rifles, keen to join the fight there.
Syria’s 16-month revolt has finally erupted in the country’s commercial hub, but the momentum was not generated inside the city – it was brought into the historic city’s ancient stone alleyways from the scorched fields of the surrounding countryside.
“We liberated the rural parts of this province. We waited and waited for Aleppo to rise, and it didn’t. We couldn’t rely on them to do it for themselves so we had to bring the revolution to them,” said a rebel commander in a nearby village, who calls himself Abu Hashish.
