‘It is difficult to underestimate the extent of destruction in this town’

May 17, 2013

Faek al-Abboud, 27, is the spokesman of Horan’s Fallujah Brigade. The brigade took on the regime’s army for nearly sixty days in Khirbet Ghazaleh, losing hold of the town earlier this week. Prior to the outbreak of the armed revolt, al-Abboud was a student at Damascus’ Tourism College. He spoke to Ahmed Kwider on Friday as his unit recovers from its major setback on the strategic road linking the Syrian capital to Amman.

The FSA, Horan’s Fallujah Brigade and Jabhat a-Nusra in Horan are fighting at the gate of Khirbet Ghazaleh near the village of al-Gherayya in the north. The situation in Khirbet is very bad.

Jabhat a-Nusra has planted mines on the southern roads of al-Gherayya. Horan’s Fallujah Brigade has assembled and set up barricades supplied with DShK machine guns and 32mm artillery batteries, in addition to medium range and light weapons. The international road is not under full control of the regime, as the rebels are still using it to set up ambushes. It is still accessible to commercial vehicles and buses heading to the Jordanian border.

Khirbet has been under regime control for several days now, and it is difficult to underestimate the extent of destruction in this town. Two days ago, I saw the roofs blown off houses in explosions there.

The fighters now are ready to prevent the shabiha from advancing towards al-Gherayya, near Khirbet Ghazaleh, where the liberated Brigade 38 is stationed 10km away from the town of Khirbet.

We’ve considered the possibility of recapturing this brigade of the regime’s army, so we’ve destroyed the barricades around it and are now removing the vehicles and carriers inside it.

With the exception of a-Dunya TV’s [a pro-government station] cameras, Khirbet is isolated from the world. We, as FSA, don’t know whether there are still citizens there or whether they all left, but we do know that there is no water or electricity there since the regime captured it.