Wary of US-led bombings, Syrians in Egypt say Assad is the real threat

6TH OF OCTOBER CITY, Egypt — At a restaurant called Barakat al-Halabi’s Chicken, a man turns from the shawarma stand where he’s slicing pieces of golden-brown meat from a spit and funneling them into warm, pillowy Syrian bread.

“What? There are airstrikes? You’re joking,” he says. “I left my house at 7 this morning and I haven’t seen the news.”

The man is from Aleppo, where the United States and a coalition of Arab states expanded their bombing beyond Islamic State targets on Tuesday, launching eight air attacks against the Khorasan Group, largely made up of veteran Al Qaeda members.

He sucks his teeth and turns back to the steaming column of chicken, his shoulders slumped. He still has family in Aleppo and doesn’t want to talk.

The United Nations refugee agency estimates there are around 140,000 Syrian refugees in Egypt, the fifth largest number behind Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Most of them arrived in late 2012 or the first half of 2013, during the yearlong tenure of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi. Under Morsi, Syrians entered Egypt easily without visas, and many received support from Islamic charity organizations.

After Morsi was deposed in a military coup, however, the new authorities cracked down on Syrian refugees. Within five days of the Islamist leader’s ouster they issued strict visa requirements for Syrians, and an aggressive media campaign painted them as having ties to the now outlawed Brotherhood. As well as widespread detentions, attacks by Egyptian civilians targeting Syrians were reported across the country.

Syrians in the neighborhood known as "Little Damascus" dream of the day when they can go home.

But they're not optimistic that a US-led bombing campaign will end a civil war that has spiraled for more than three years and has killed more than 200,000. They fear the latest round of airstrikes will only result in more civilian casualties.

More from GlobalPost: LIVE BLOG: The latest on the US-led bombing campaign in Syria

While opinions varied greatly on how to stop the violence, most refugees interviewed Tuesday agreed on one thing: Bashar al-Assad has caused far more damage for Syrians than the Islamic State has.

“We are tired of thinking about blood,” says Ahlam Haj Naasan, a 47-year-old woman from Aleppo. Her name means “dreams” in Arabic. She says wearily that she wants “only security.”

Many of the Syrian refugees in Egypt arrived in 2012 and 2013 thinking they would only stay a month or two, until it was safe enough to head back.

“Even if we have no houses when we go back we will make tents and live in them,” says 35-year-old Hanadi Muflah.

Syrians in Egypt are largely concentrated in the desert satellite cities around the capital like 6^th of October City. Earlier in the war there were many Syrian cafes and other businesses that opened in the heart of Cairo. But when the post-Morsi backlash began, the refugees faced a spike in harassment and many landlords raised rents to unaffordable rates. Their presence there is now far more subtle.

A young man from Homs, Syria sells olives, pickles and other Syrian products in 6th of October City's "Little Damascus." (Laura Dean/GlobalPost)

A 50-year-old man who identifies himself only as Abu Mohamed, from Deraa in southwestern Syria, asks to be interviewed away from his neighbors. After walking down the block, he looks over his shoulder to make sure we’re alone.

“I’m with the regime,” he says, meaning he supports Assad. He also supports the US-led offensive, which he believes will end the civil war within a month or two. 

But he stresses that he doesn’t want anyone to kill civilians, only members of armed extremist groups — he lists "Daesh" (as the Islamic State is known in Arabic), Al Qaeda and Jabhat Al Nusra.

Mohannad, 23, an agricultural student at Cairo University who comes from the northern Syrian city of Idlib, argues for a distinction between those groups.

“Jabhat el Nusra has support in Syria, unlike Daesh. The extremism of Daesh — people are not used to it,” he says.

Unlike IS, the extremist Jabhat Al Nusra is made up mostly of Syrians whose stated goal includes fighting Assad.

“People will be angry if they attack Jabhat Al Nusra,” Mohannad says. “They are more popular than Daesh.”

Mohannad’s hometown of Idlib was hit by airstrikes on Tuesday, too, allegedly by the US, but he hadn’t yet been in touch with his family there. He only talks to them every month or two by phone.

Mohannad supports the rebel Free Syrian Army, and says he would have supported Western airstrikes against Assad when the uprising began more than three years ago. “At the beginning, we would have made a coalition with the devil against Bashar,” he says.

As for the current bombing campaign, he believes “it all benefits the regime.”

Few people here feel that the strikes benefit the Syrian people. Many are particularly skeptical of US involvement, feeling that IS only exists as a threat now because of the power vacuum left by the US in Iraq and the lack of Western intervention in Syria.

“We wanted foreign intervention [3 years ago] but not airstrikes,” says a 31-year-old doctoral student at Cairo University who does not want to be named. Originally from Quneitra in the Golan Heights, he says he supported the popular uprising against Assad and the option of a no-fly zone. “Daesh has been around for more than a year. Bashar has been killing people for more than a year,” he says.

Animosity toward Assad’s regime is far greater here than antipathy for IS. “They should attack [both] Bashar and Daesh, or neither one,” says Hamza, 26, another student from Quneitra. “The crimes of Bashar are worse than the crimes of Daesh … they’re more merciful than the regime.”

Hanadi Muflah, who is from the outskirts of Damascus, agrees. She and her husband fled Syria after he was detained for two months by the regime because his name was similar to that of a wanted man. When he got out, she said, he looked 100 years old.

“They should attack Bashar al-Assad, then Daesh,” says Muflah. “After that, God will judge them.”