Driven out of Aleppo as children, these fighters returned as its liberators Characteristics

Aleppo, Syria – When Abdallah Abu Jara was 13 years old, he dreamed of becoming an engineer or a lawyer.

But his hometown of Aleppo was besieged by Syrian regime forces aided by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah.

“The situation was terrible with bombings, beatings and killings,” the now 21-year-old told Al Jazeera. “I remember the massacres of the regime, the killings and the attacks on bakeries and hospitals.”

Eight years later, a series of images have gone viral on social media. Youths driven out by the regime in 2016 have returned as fighters to liberate the city of Aleppo. The side-by-side photos show children boarding buses in one photo. In the next picture, they are young men with wide smiles, dressed in military uniforms and carrying rifles.

On December 22, 2016 a four-year battle that pitted regime forces and their allies against the opposition ended with the evacuation of thousands of opposition forces from eastern Aleppo by bus.

War crimes were widespread.

Al-Assad's regime besieged opposition areas that included thousands of civilians, while the Russian air force bombed hospitals and bakeries. The regime used internationally banned chlorine bombs, according to the United Nations, killing hundreds.

The UN reported in November 2016, a month before the fighting ended, that there were no functioning hospitals in eastern Aleppo.

“The ferocity and intensity of the fighting was unprecedented,” said Elia Ayoub, a writer and researcher who covered the fall of Aleppo.

The UN also criticized opposition groups for indiscriminately shelling civilian areas “to terrorize the civilian population” and for shooting at civilians to try to force them to leave the areas.

At least 35,000 people were dead and much of the city was destroyed by 2016. – most of it is still in ruins eight years later. At least 18 percent of the dead were children.

“I thought we would never come back,” Abu Jarrah told Al Jazeera.

Capital of the Syrian revolution

When in 2011 a peaceful uprising demanding reform broke out in Syria, al-Assad responded with brutal force. The opposition took up arms and challenged the regime across the country.

The regime relied on foreign intervention. Hezbollah and Iran joined the fray in 2013, and Russian intervention in late 2015, ostensibly to counter ISIS, pushed back the opposition.

“Symbolically, Aleppo was the capital of the revolution,” Ayub said. “Its fall was preceded by other cities, and it was the final nail in the coffin of the rebellion at that time.”

The city would remain under regime control for almost eight years. Many who fled Aleppo moved to Idlib in northwestern Syria and huddled in camps for displaced people, where they endured years of airstrikes by the regime and its allies.

In November, opposition fighters led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army launched an operation to retake Aleppo.

Among the factors in their favor was that the Syrian army was probably weaker than ever and its allies were busy with their own battles – Russia in Ukraine and Iran and Hezbollah with Israel.

“I felt human again”

On November 30, the Syrian opposition re-entered Aleppo for the first time in eight years and quickly took control of the city.

Among the returning fighters was Abu Jarrah, who had joined a faction of the Free Syrian Army when he was about 16 years old.

“I felt human again,” he told Al Jazeera, his eyes gleaming outside the city's historic citadel, dressed in military uniforms emblazoned with Syria's green, white and black flag, with three red stars. “Today is an indescribable joy.

Not far away stood Abu Abdelaziz, another Free Syrian Army fighter who had fled the city when he was 17. He wore a uniform and a black face mask with a skull printed on the front and carried a rifle.

“They forced us out, displaced us and cursed us and we went back to where we were raised, where we spent our childhood with our friends and school,” he said. “It's a great feeling of great joy. You can't measure it.

Abu Abdelaziz said the first thing he did when the city was liberated was to visit his old school.

“When I was young, I wanted to be a heart doctor,” said the fighter, now 24. However, the war took a heavy toll on him. His family was killed and his house in Aleppo was destroyed. Still, he said he wanted to stay in Aleppo and become a doctor.

“Now, God willing, I will complete my studies,” he said.

“We will build this country together”

Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and historically among the most important economic cities in the Middle East. Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Mongols, Mamluks and Ottomans ruled it before it became part of modern Syria. Before the civil war, it was the industrial and financial capital of Syria.

Parts of Aleppo are largely deserted. Locals told Al Jazeera that even before the war, the regime stopped investing in the city. But a very small part of the damage from the fighting from 2012 to 2016. are fixed. Even the jewel in the crown, the Citadel of Aleppo, was badly damaged and left to rot. Buildings destroyed by air raids are still visible from the foot of the Citadel today.

Even in the city's fringes—or fringes—whole neighborhoods are completely abandoned. Collapsed roofs and crumbling facades stand behind empty pools, while wild dogs roam the ghost towns.

Now that the war is over, the city's returning fighters hope to trade in their weapons to help fix the city.

“If a field of study opens up, I want to complete my studies,” Abu Jarrah said. “And we will build this country together.”