Rebel Seizure of Border Points a Blow to Assad

Syrian rebels' seizure of crossings along the frontier with Iraq marks a blow to Bashar Assad's regime, but has also divided communities that have long straddled the border.

Of the three main crossings between Syria and Iraq, rebels have maintained control over the al-Bukamal border point since Thursday evening, and briefly held the Yarabiyah crossing along the northern part of the two countries' frontier.

The seizure of the Iraq crossings comes as Syrian rebels took control of two border posts with Turkey and attempted to overrun another border point along the Jordanian frontier.

"The opposition controlling this border is a major blow to the regime in Syria," said Hamid Fadhel, a politics professor at Baghdad University.

"Holding territory at the border will weaken the regime, which was looking to cut off any support for the opposition."

Fadhel added: "This situation will strengthen the position of the opposition and will weaken the position of the Syrian government, which was looking to continue controlling the border crossing in order to prevent smuggling of reinforcements (of people and supplies) for the opposition."

Syria's population is majority Sunni Arab, but the country has long been ruled by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Its eastern frontiers are mostly populated by Sunnis opposed to Assad's rule, sharing that religious background with most residents along Iraq's side of the border.

"The al-Bukamal crossing, in addition to what it represents in terms of a major part of the economic and security relations between Baghdad and Damascus, also has a level of importance in the social sense," said Iraqi political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari.

"Losing the al-Bukamal border crossing is a big thing -- it will affect the Syrian regime," he said, raising the prospect that rebels could use control of the border point to smuggle weapons.

At al-Qaim, the Iraqi town that forms the other side of the border from al-Bukamal, many residents have relatives on the Syrian side of the border, as Sunni tribes have long lived on both sides of the 600-kilometer (375-mile) frontier.

Al-Qaim's mayor Farhan Farhan told Agence France Presse that trade through the crossing had ground to a halt about a month and a half ago, when Syrian rebels first began trying to take control of al-Bukamal.

"It used to consist of 40 trucks from Syria to Iraq on a daily basis, each carrying about 27 tons of vegetables, other food supplies, clothes and electronics," he said.

"The people of al-Qaim depend completely on Syrian goods, because they are cheaper than those coming from" the rest of Iraq, he said.

Trade between Iraq and Syria reached $2 billion in 2010, and was expected to reach $3 billion for 2011, according to official Iraqi and Syrian figures.

The Syrian Center for Statistics said that in 2009, 52.5 percent of Syria's exports went to the Arab world, while 31.4 percent of that went to Iraq.

But Iraq has increased in importance as a trading partner and conduit as other neighboring countries have enforced sanctions imposed as a result of the bloody crackdown on a more-than 16-month uprising while Baghdad has held off.

Residents of al-Qaim, 340 kilometers (210 miles) west of Baghdad, interviewed by AFP spoke of how, in mid-2005, when U.S. forces mounted an offensive in the area in an effort to round up Sunni insurgents, people in al-Bukamal provided them with supplies, fighters and weapons.

Now, they want to return the favor, but the Iraqi army has barred anyone from crossing the border, except for Iraqis fleeing the violence in Syria.

"If the Iraqi army were not preventing us, we would have given everything we could to our people in al-Bukamal," said 25-year-old civil servant Abu Yusuf.

"We feel sad seeing them attacked, and see that they do not have enough food and medicine, and we are unable to help them like we should. We want to stand by their side, like they stood by us."

By Friday, after rebels took control of al-Bukamal, al-Qaim was flooded with security personnel, with several Iraqi army and police units deployed to establish checkpoints and carry out patrols and Iraqi officials closed down the border crossing completely.

"All we want is to let the families leave al-Bukamal and go to al-Qaim, and for the wounded to be treated on the other side of the border, and for us to get food and medicine," said Khaled Abu Ziad, an officer with the rebel Free Syrian Army units currently controlling al-Bukamal.

"We do not need weapons -- we have enough already."