The Syrian government hailed it as victory, and the opposition insisted that it was mainly regrouping, but the evacuation of anti-regime combatants from the besieged city of Homs may be a turning point in the Syrian conflict. The evacuation deal was sponsored by the UN and mediated by both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Ending two years of siege, the deal allowed 1,200 rebel fighters to leave Homs last week, each bearing a rifle and a bag of personal belongings. The anti-regime combatants proceeded to rebel-held areas in the northern parts of the country. The deal, which some think may be a model for further deals aiming to pacify the turbulent nation, involved concessions by the opposition. Under the deal, opposition forces will end their siege of Nubul and Zahraa, two Shiite towns near Aleppo, and the opposition also promised to release 70 pro-government captives in Aleppo and Latakia. The deal paved the way for the return of Homs residents to their city, but UN officials warned that unexploded ordinance and the destruction of many of the city's buildings and much of its infrastructure made it advisable for the inhabitants not to rush back too soon. People who returned to the now pacified but extensively destroyed city described it as a “ghost town.” Entire neighbourhoods have been razed, water and electricity are lacking, and many streets are impassable after months of aerial and artillery bombardment. For government supporters, this was a moment of jubilation. The withdrawal of rebel combatants from a city that was once hailed as the “capital of the revolution” has an unmistakable symbolic value. The regime's media said that Homs was finally free of “terrorists”. However, the opposition has maintained that, far from this being the end of the revolution, it is just a stage for “regrouping” in the long battle to bring down what they term a murderous regime. Opposition leaders said that the withdrawal was “tactical” and that the battle was far from over. Yet, there is no denying that the opposition has lost a central and strategic town that controls crucial land routes. Homs was once considered the cornerstone in the challenge to the authority of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who is planning to run for another term in office. Homs paid a high price for its fight against the regime. Activists claim that nearly 20,000 inhabitants were killed in the regime's indiscriminate shelling of the city. Syrian opposition member Ali Al-Abdallah said that what had happened in Homs would affect the entire country. “Homs was not only the capital of the Revolution. From the regime's point of view, it was a litmus test for managing the conflict. Due to its religious, social, and political diversity, Homs is a microcosm of Syria. This is what caused the regime to use it as a case study, trying out ways of dismantling the Revolution and disrupting social bonds to its advantage,” Al-Abdallah said. According to Al-Abdallah, the regime has been intent on amplifying sectarian divisions in the city, a tactic that it has used to galvanise support for its cause among the Shiites, especially the Alawite minority. “The regime used excessive force, killed citizens randomly, abducted and raped women, arrested citizens arbitrarily, and allowed its goons and intelligence agencies to pillage at will,” he said. At one point, a new market was created dubbed the Souk Al-Sunnah, or the Sunni Market, because in it “furniture stolen from Sunni neighbourhoods” was sold. Some members of the opposition say that the fall of Homs was due to squabbling among rebel groups vying for turf and funding. Ideological differences have emerged among the 30 or so rebel groups positioned in Homs, and quarrels broke out among rebel groups controlled by various liberal and Islamist groups over assistance arriving from the Gulf nations, opposition sources said. What added to the intensity of the squabbles were the goals that the Islamists brought into a revolt that had started out with secular calls for democracy and freedom. Once some groups had started calling for the implementation of Sharia law or the creation of Islamic emirates, unity became harder to maintain among the various anti-regime groups. This absence of unity, as well as the unfailing support of Moscow and Tehran for the regime, is what helped the latter back on its feet while weakening western support to the rebels. The fighters who stayed in the city even after two years of siege were mostly inhabitants of Homs who wanted to defend their neighbourhoods against assaults by the regime, according to opposition activists. The evacuation deal was reached after prolonged negotiations in which Saudi and Iranian officials reportedly took part. The same pattern of negotiations is said to be being pursued by the regime in its bid to pacify areas around the capital Damascus. UN officials also helped facilitate the deal and supervise its implementation. It will allow humanitarian aid to move smoothly into previously inaccessible zones. But activists warn that the regime may continue to try to cleanse Homs of its Sunni population, in order to use it as a bargaining chip if its longevity is threatened. According to the activists, the regime is trying to starve areas outside its control in order to force the rebels into making similar deals and ultimately deprive the Revolution of its momentum. Many in the opposition admit that unless unity is restored within the anti-regime campaign, al-Assad may have a chance to consolidate his power. Observers are also closely watching the regime's actions. If Al-Assad's government seeks a policy of demographic change in Homs, then there are ground to assume that it intends to create Shiite strongholds to use in controlling — or partitioning — the country. If the regime shows an interest in preserving the ethnic diversity of Homs, then it may have come to understand the implicit perils of sectarianism. Already, some of the sectarian militias that the regime created in Homs seem to be acting too independently for the regime's taste. Homs, people on both sides of the conflict agree, is a watershed. A similar deal may be in the works for Aleppo, where the humanitarian situation is worsening by the day. If Aleppo, a city of 2.5 million people that was once considered the commercial hub of Syria as a whole, opts for a deal, Syria may have a temporary respite. But long-term solutions are hard to foresee in a country where the gap between the autocratic regime, now with blood its hands, and the national aspirations for freedom and democracy, is too wide to bridge.
