By Sam Dagher
DAMASCUS, Syria--Fighting has intensified this month in the
suburbs east of Damascus as the regime of President Bashar al-Assad
tries to pressure rebels in the area to agree to a truce.
On Friday, fighting raged between Islamist rebels, including
those linked to al Qaeda, and regime forces backed by the Lebanese
militia Hezbollah for control of the town of Mleha, considered the
gateway to the rebellious eastern suburbs.
Some middle-class Damascenes have come to favor the regime over
the rebels because of the latter's increasing dominance by
extremist groups. Some in the capital say they want the regime to
wipe out the rebels in the suburbs, even if it means killing a lot
of civilians in the process.
Civilians in the rebel-held suburbs outside Damascus have been
living under siege for more than a year and have been subjected to
almost daily airstrikes and bombardment. Many have reached such a
state of desperation that they now want civilians living within the
relative safety of the capital to taste some of their
suffering.
"We are tired of being the only ones who get pummeled," said a
woman living in the eastern suburbs, speaking via Skype.
Meanwhile at least 45 people have been killed in Damascus and
more than 150 injured since the start of August, almost all of them
civilians, in a daily barrage of improvised rockets and mortar
shells fired at the capital by rebels, who say they are avenging
the death of civilians in the suburbs.
Over the past two weeks, some Damascenes, increasingly
frustrated with a conflict in which civilian victims are
categorized as "regime loyalists" or "terrorists," have turned to
social media to try to prove the often senseless and absurd nature
of war and to humanize the victims, highlighting personal stories
to counter the easy stigma of labels.
They are posting and sharing photographs, verbal portraits and
reminiscences. They try to show that some of the dead in the
capital lived in parts of the city known for clandestine opposition
to President Assad, or places that are sheltering families forced
out of the very suburbs from where the rebel rockets were being
launched.
Much of the material is featured on a newly created Facebook
page called "Diaries of a Mortar Shell," on which organizers try to
tally the number, location and victims of mortar and rocket
attacks. The page says more than 184 mortars and rockets had hit
the capital since Aug. 3.
A photograph of 10-year-old Ahmed Abdul-Baqi is among those
posted on the page. The caption says he was "martyred" on Aug.
5.
"I wish nobody harm, not even with a thorn," said the boy's
bespectacled and bearded father, Fahed Abdul-Baqi, 47 years old.
"They are all our people."
In an interview at his home on the east side of Damascus, close
to one of the front lines, Mr. Abdul-Baqi recalled the last hours
in his son's life. Ahmed was showing more affection than usual that
day toward his family, he said. Then he went to buy falafel for
dinner. That is when he was killed by a mortar shell fired from the
direction of rebel-held areas to the east.
The family lives on the sixth floor of their building. After the
explosion the father rushed out to the balcony. As he shouted, "My
son, Ahmed," down to the street, a volunteer from the Syrian Arab
Red Crescent first aid outpost next door shouted back to ask if the
boy was carrying anything?
"Falafel," answered the father, whose account was confirmed by
relatives and neighbors.
Mr. Abdul-Baqi said Ahmed died one year to the day after his
uncle, Mr. Abdul-Baqi's brother, was killed when shrapnel from a
mortar-shell explosion hit his head as he stood on the kitchen
balcony drinking his morning coffee.
Now responsible for both his own and his late brother's family,
Mr. Abdul-Baqi said he can't afford to move anywhere. He is a
longtime resident of the area and owns a factory that lies idle
because it is close to a war zone. But all around him are families
who have been displaced from Jobar, a rebel-held district whose
limits start just across street. Few of the displaced families have
the option to go elsewhere.
Those who could afford to relocate outside Syria did so long
ago.
A businessman who declined to give his name said he moved his
wife and two children to neighboring Lebanon two years ago from the
middle-class neighborhood of Muhajreen in the capital. He still
commutes to Damascus frequently for work, however, and on Aug. 4,
he said a street sweeper was killed and the businessman's maid lost
an arm when a mortar shell exploded outside his home in Muhajreen.
This was confirmed by other residents.
Rebels insisted they hit Mr. Assad's home in the adjacent,
more-upscale Malki neighborhood.
During the largely peaceful first year of the uprising against
Mr. Assad, Muhajreen was home to many young opposition activists.
Reminders of those early days are still visible. The walls of two
schools in the area are still covered with antiregime graffiti that
has been crossed out but is still legible.
"Leave, we don't love you," reads a popular anti-Assad
admonition from that period.
Amal Kayali, a schoolteacher, who lives in Muhajreen, said she
sympathizes with victims everywhere: "It's a tough situation anyway
you cut it." She believes average people are helpless to stop the
war, even though some are starting to speak out.
Since the summer of 2012, the regime has largely succeeded in
cracking down on open dissent in the capital. It has also
completely separated the capital from the rebel-held suburbs, which
it has besieged and subjected to sweeping military operations. The
area was also hit with a chemical-weapons attack one year ago that
killed more than 1,300 people. The attack was blamed on the regime,
which denied it.
Now Damascus and its suburbs often appear worlds apart. In the
week of July 28, which was a holiday in Syria for the Muslim feast
known as Eid al-Fitr, families were out in the parks and cafes of
the capital past midnight each day.
Just 9 miles away in Douma, the largest city in the rebel-held
suburbs, families had to contend with regime airstrikes and rocket
attacks. An attack on a market killed 22 in one day alone, many of
them children.
According to a doctor at a local hospital, among the dead was
5-year-old Amer al-Saour, who was out shopping with his
grandfather.
Write to Sam Dagher at Sam Dagher@wsj.com
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