Saraqeb is still at the mercy of the tanks of President Bashar Assad, just as it has been for about a year. The military invaded during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in 2011. It re-entered on March 24 for a couple of days. It also shelled Saraqeb on July 19, in response to an attack by local elements of the rebel Free Syria Army on a checkpoint on the outskirts of the town. Some 25 people were killed in several hours of shelling on that night. It is Ramadan once again and the tanks every now and then lob a shell in the direction of town to remind Saraqeb that Assad’s forces are still around. (MORE: In Syria, Rebels Celebrate Stunning Assassinations–and Send More Forces to Damascus) But a different flag flies in Saraqeb: the three starred one belonging to the rebels. And the local government works. The Baladiye, or local council, in this Sunni town of some 40,000 in northwestern Idlib province is still functioning. Its 90 or so civil servants still show up for work and still draw their salaries. Most of the people of Saraqeb say their town is free, liberated of Assad’s regime. But they have consciously retained some elements of the old order. Around the corner from the nondescript Baladiye building, other government offices like the records of births, deaths and marriages, and the agricultural office (which dispenses subsidized fertilizer and other staples crucial for the livelihood of this agricultural region) are untouched. Not so the nearby headquarters of the ruling Baath Party. “We burnt it because it didn’t serve a purpose,” says Mohammad, 21, an economics student turned activist and Free Syrian Army fighter. “But we didn’t burn the trees outside it.” The 17-month Syrian crisis is now in its endgame, that much is clear. In the past few weeks, the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups have brought the fight to the regime’s two main strongholds; the capital Damascus and the country’s commercial hub of Aleppo in the north. What remains![]()
