Just before sunrise, a select group of Syrian rebel fighters step away from the front lines here for a task their commanders now consider a vital and urgent part of the war effort: baking bread.
The floppy moons that they produce usually go quickly to hungry residents and rebels. Bread is a staple of the Syrian diet – it accompanies every meal – and in a city paralysed by two weeks of war, the bakery lines show that basic commerce has become a battleground of its own.
”The regime has tried to deprive our supporters of water and gas, and now they are using bread,” said rebel fighter Basheer al-Hajeh. But he said the rebels had learned how to fight back against the government’s attempts to keep bread and other resources out of opposition-controlled areas.
”We took control of the wheat warehouses in Aleppo’s suburbs,” he said. ”We have many of them, in several areas, and they might keep us supplied for weeks.”
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The struggle to keep bakeries operating is part of a much larger fight over the Syrian economy, especially in Aleppo, the country’s commercial hub and its largest city. As the government of President Bashar Assad tries to project an image of normalcy, denying reports of runaway inflation, rebels say they are finding new ways to attract support from the business class and siphon off government resources.
Kamal Hamdan, a Lebanese economist who has worked extensively in Syria, said both sides were engaged in efforts to replace the peacetime economy with their own wartime alternatives.
”They are expecting a civil war that will take a long time and you have to sustain the daily life of the areas you are controlling,” he said. ”It’s part of the game.”
The government has a clear advantage. Its Central Bank reported foreign currency assets of about $US17 billion, one month after the conflict started. Syria has now asked Russia to provide a loan to prop up the economy and air transportation to the rest of the world.
It is also asking for oil products from Russia as energy shipments from traditional suppliers drop because of Western sanctions.
But after 17 months of conflict, the opposition is becoming more and more creative. In Damascus, for example, activists say there are merchants that pretend to support Mr Assad, only to funnel government-supplied cooking fuel, gasoline, bread and water to the other side. ”We ask them not to defect,” said Moaz, an opposition activist in Damascus. ”They will be rewarded later.” Like others interviewed, he would not give his full name for fear of retribution.
Rebels are also managing to create supply chains that route around government-controlled areas with the help of private businesses.
In some cases, merchants donate money. In others, they said, business owners support the families of rebel fighters or opposition supporters. And especially in Aleppo over the past week, more immediate acts of generosity have emerged, with fresh food suddenly appearing for those in need.
At the United Nations, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, called the 18-month Syrian conflict a ”catastrophe”, and compared it to the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda.
Mr Ban told the general assembly: ”The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organisation stands for. I do not want today’s United Nations to fail that test. I want us all to show the people of Syria and the world that we have learned the lessons of Srebrenica.”
Photo by Reuters