REPORT: Proxy War in the Northern Corridor: The Case of Mare’a

During the Syrian civil war, towns and cities across the country overthrew the central government and governed themselves. Ultimately, however, this experiment in self-rule collapsed: some cities fell under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, others of the Kurdish-backed forces, and others still were recaptured by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Most of these self-governing cities were riven by feuds, factionalism, and bitter conflicts over resources. One the few exceptions is the town of Mare’a, a small municipality in the northern Aleppo countryside, which remained a degree of autonomy and cohesion throughout the war–and managed to become one of the most influential cities in the entire war. How did the revolutionaries of Mare’a escape the fate of other Syrian rebels? Why was the city politics so cohesive? In this report, Jeremy Hodge and Hussein Nasser delve into the history of this much discussed, but poorly understood, revolutionary town. At the heart of this story is how factors like inequality and the rural-urban divide, which have largely been ignored in most commentary on the Syrian war–played a key role in shaping the trajectory of the uprising.