Young Lebanese to fight alongside Syrian ‘brothers’

‘We are going to Syria to carry out jihad and overthrow the tyrant Assad’:

LEBANON: About 20 armed men enter a dilapidated barn in northeastern Lebanon, preparing to sneak across the border and fight alongside their Syrian “brothers” against the regime in Damascus. The young men decide to rest briefly at the farm near Al-Qaa in the Bekaa Valley, their arms and baggage placed against a wall.

The volunteers aim is to join the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is made up mostly of Syrian army deserters.

Reclining on mattresses on the ground, they dip bread into tins of sardines or tuna, their evening meal. “We will cross the border to go to Idlib (in northwest Syria). The FSA is trying to retake the city and needs all the help it can get. Let’s go for it,” says Abdel Hakim says in decent English.

Like his comrades, the young man from the Baalbek region has dropped everything to go fight in Syria. For security reasons, they choose not to reveal their full identities.

“I worked in a mobile phone shop and with my savings I bought an old Kalashnikov on the black market and 10 magazines,” Bilal says with a grin.

“This is the first time I leave Lebanon and it’s to fight in Syria. I’m afraid when I see the images on TV but I’m prepared to die if God wills. For my family, it would be a honour if I became a martyr of the Syrian revolution,” Bilal says.

“They are our brothers. We must rush to their help,” he says.

AFP