Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS Page #2

---

Showing members of the

syrian army defecting to join

Protesters in

the city of homs.

Robin yassin kassab: You

have a growing number of local

Volunteers and a growing

number of military defectors

Who were joining together

to form into hundreds of

Self-defense militias which

eventually all came together

Under the umbrella titled,

"the free syrian army."

Ahmed:
These groups the

fsa had in aleppo at that

Time were really helpful.

Once in salaheddin, I

was demonstrating in there.

People start just

falling on the ground that,

From shooting

from the regime.

They closed the road on us.

Ahmed:
And then, like out

of nothing, like angels,

Somebody shoot the

thugs and they fell

And they were

able to escape.

Soldier:
Takbir!

Fsa soldiers:
Allahu akbar!

Soldier:
Takbir!

Fsa soldiers:
Allahu akbar!

Soldier:
Takbir!

Christoph reuter: The

propaganda of the regime was

"we are not confronted

with a local revolution

Of people who

demand rights.

No, we are confronted with a

foreign-funded jihadi movement."

Peter bouckaert:

Actually, a lot of the

Jihadists were

released by the syrian regime

In the very early

stage of the conflict.

There was an amnesty which

allowed a lot of people with

Very nasty records to be

freed from custody in syria.

It was a strategy of survival.

Robin yassin kassab: The

regime thought enough people

In the outside world would

be scared away from the

Revolution by the size of

these bearded working classmen

With kalashnikovs

and they were right.

And america, in 2011,

2012, they were saying,

"we can't allow

weapons to go into syria.

We can't send the democrats,

the nationalists of the free

Army weapons, because some

of those weapons might get into

The hands of

islamist extremists."

Will mccants:
In the absence

of a major international effort

To build a army to

oppose the assad regime,

A lot of private

individuals in the gulf began

To fund armed groups on

the ground inside of syria.

Ghaith abdul-ahad: Fsa was a

fantastic media labeled term,

But there was no

central authority,

No one could command anyone,

no one could have a one unity

On a frontline.

I would go to a village,

it has five, six militias.

I would come few months later,

they have multiplied into 50,

60 because forming a militia

became a way of getting money.

The amount of money,

the amount of ammunition,

The amount of weapons pumped

into that conflict totally

Destroyed the revolution

and turned it into the

Dynamics of civil war.

Peter bouckaert:
Early in

the war, isis wasn't present.

There was a very

diverse landscape.

So a lot of the

bosnians, and the tunisians,

And the libyans, the more

Rate this script:4.0 / 1 vote