Reporting by Faris Rifai
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Ajnad al-Sham fighter attacked days ago al-Asali Martyrs school in al-Qadam, southern suburb of Damascus, assaulting a number of teachers, beating them and cursing them to prevent them from opening the school.
The situation created panic among the students and female teachers, according to one of the school teachers who preferred not to mention his name.
Speaking to Zaman al-Wasl, he explained that the problem started in February 2016 when the Interim Government wanted to give the school a grant to cover the cost of school books which bothered Ajnad al-Sham. He added, “this faction which controls the al-Qadam movement placed its hand on the local council, the developmental and charitable organizations and they are civil actors.” They also tried, according to our speaker, to control education and after our speaker opposed the issue he was removed from the local council where he served as head of the educational office.
He continued, “Ajnad al-Sham tried after that to open their own school to gain support.” He indicated that he tried to convince them not to do so, clarifying to them that them opening a competing school will push the Islamic State to take over al-Asali Martyrs school because it is in an ISIS controlled area. According to our speaker, they ignored him as this is what they wanted to happen.
Our speaker said it was clear they wanted to control all the income of the local councils, charitable organizations, etc. With the knowledge that the school has been working for 4 years without the support of the coalition or any other support except some small donation which came from ARAM organization and Sons of Damascus Association.
Our source added that, “al-Ajnad opening a school was planned and premeditated, and the objective of it was closing our school for them to take center stage and raise the slogans and statements they wanted and the evidence is that they classified the Judicial Center which is no higher than the level of the book to that it is a Judicial high school.”
Regarding the incident in the school, our speaker clarified that a number of members of Ajnad al-Sham came to the school with weapons, sticks, and cables. They “practiced all forms of thuggish behavior,” against the teaching staff. They grabbed the teacher Bar’a al-Asali and beat him before the students and his colleagues as images circulated in social media websites showed.
Our speaker continued, “the attackers then took al-Asali to their headquarters where they threatened him and threatened those working in the school with repeating the attack if they think of opening the school once again.” Our speaker confirmed that he has a vocal recording of the commander of Ajnad al-Sham making the threat.
Our speaker called on Ajnad al-Sham in all Syria to force the faction present in al-Qadam area to stop its arbitrary practices, hold its members responsible for the transgression, and keep them away from civilian work, including organizations, local councils, education. He also urged them to restrict their activities to military work in the area of al-Qadam.
Zaman al-Wasl presented the accusations directed at Ajnad al-Sham to a source in the al-Qadam neighborhood local council. The source, who preferred not to be named, confirmed that “the al-Asali Martyr School was held in the past two years in al-Asali area. It went out of service in the start of September when ISIS took it over because of its located in ISIS controlled part of al-Asali in the al-Qadam Damascene neighborhood.”
Our speaker said, “ISIS prevented al-Asali school from working and shut it down and then changed its name to the first Judicial school and prescribed special curriculum in it.”
The local council in al-Qadam decided to open a school in the liberated area to be far away from ISIS and its ideology. According to our source, the issue did not appeal to the former school administration, and a media war and subsequent problems ensued.
Our speaker accused the school administration of entering one of the houses in the military area and opening a school there. When the fighters from Ajnad al-Sham came to inquire about the issue a problem arose which was exaggerated through the media, filming and data.
The source confirmed, “all what has been said about al-Ajnad trying to take control of the financial resources it not correct,” indicating, “al-Ajnad’s command is different to the members of the neighborhood local council.”
The education directorate in free Damascus issued a statement asking the military commanders working in al-Qadam, “to denounce the attackers’ actions, and confirm that this was an individual action and not an execution of an order issued by their military commanders.”
It called for the appropriate measures to be taken to hold them accountable for this crime and compensate the persons who were attacked including medical expenses.
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