The rebels’ path to victory is littered with evidence of Syria’s defeated military. It also reflects the sizable task of trying to put the country back together.
The rebels’ path to victory is littered with evidence of Syria’s defeated military. It also reflects the sizable task of trying to put the country back together.
A reporter and a photographer for The New York Times and a Syrian translator spent 10 days journeying through central and northern Syria for this article, visiting scenes of battles and interviewing dozens of combatants.
More than 50 tanks and military vehicles lay scattered and abandoned across the parade and training grounds of an army base in northern Syria, captured by rebels in their lightning-fast offensive that toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
The main garrison building bore the marks of two large explosions, but little sign of close-contact fighting. The assault was over in a day when the Syrian soldiers retreated, said Abu Muhammad, a rebel fighter guarding the base.
The government soldiers left behind a filthy jumble of army life: clothes, blankets, gas masks and helmets, and empty tin cans. Living conditions were primitive, with no windows or doors — instead, sacks or sheets of tin roofing were fixed over openings.
The base reflected the opportunity for a new government borne out of a well-prepared military campaign, bringing together different rebel groups, whose success surprised even its own fighters. But it also was a measure of the challenges ahead as they look to rebuild a country broken by more than a decade of civil war, depriving and depleting its military.
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Source: www.nytimes.com