Assad's militias to loot what's left of devastating neighborhoods of Aleppo

After each campaign by Bashar al-Assad forces and its Militias on rebels-held areas, the Alawite civilians and loyalist paramilitaries from the National Defence Force are storming the newly recaptured towns and villages, looting Sunni homes and often setting them on fire, with the apparent aim of ensuring that the owners have nothing left to return to, According to Telegraph report published two months ago but the story is repeated every day.

 According to Zaman Alwasl source in Aleppo, Secret bids have been made between Assad's militias themselves in Aleppo.

The price of the last bid to steal one the Aleppo neighborhoods was 374.000 S.P ($2000) the source said , the total amount of the stolen materials was 5 Million S.P, ''it's successful trade, one of the Shabiha said, expressing his dissatisfaction this time because he was expecting more money.

 "They even took the sinks of the bathrooms. The things they couldn't carry, they burnt," said Zacharia to Telegraph, a 23-year-old rebel fighter who escaped Talkalakh, after government troops stormed the town.

"After the army were finished, the Shabiha came: they divided the houses up between them, and started taking away the spoils."

Local people believe the regime is trying to cleanse the area of its Sunni residents with the aim of creating a rump state for the minority Alawites. This would run from the capital, Damascus, to the Alawite coastal heartland of Latakia. Homs is the vital link connecting the two regions.

Some experts are skeptical, believing that the regime, buoyed by its recent military victories, is focused simply on crushing the insurgency across the country.

But expelling Sunnis, who have tended to back the rebels, would be a way for Mr Assad's forces to consolidate their control over hard-won terrain: "The regime hasn't been in a position to allow people back into the areas they have taken," said Peter Harling from the International Crisis Group. "Wherever people come back, the problems come back with them."

 In Aleppo, as in Homs, stolen goods are taken to a loyalist Alawite district and sold at what has become known as "the Sunni Market". A female activist, calling herself Yam al-Homsi, secretly filmed the market: "I pretended I wanted to buy a cheap laptop. The market has everything you can imagine; from Adidas trainers to furniture," she said.

"They even took the doors, tiles and electric cables from the homes. The Shabiha are organised: some loot the houses, whilst others sell the goods. They are not ashamed. One man told me it was a 'gift from the war'."