The Syrian Rebels’ Libyan Weapon | Libyan Tweep Forum

Meet the Irish-Libyan commander giving Bashar al-Assad nightmares.

BY MARY FITZGERALD | AUGUST 9, 2012 (Foreign policy)

IDLIB, Syria — 

In a dusty schoolyard somewhere in Idlib province, several hundred men form neat rows before standing to attention. 

“Who are we?” bellows one man at the front. “Liwa al-Ummah!” the men reply in unison, pumping their guns in the air. They look different from your average Syrian rebel fighter, typically dressed in a scruffy mismatch of military fatigues and civilian clothes. Most of these men are decked out in identical fatigues, boots, and khaki-colored T-shirts. A handful sport dazzling white T-shirts emblazoned with the Liwa al-Ummah crest: a raised fist set against the tri-starred green, white, and black flag adopted by the Syrian rebels. 

“Revolutionaries of Sham,” it reads, using the Arabic term for historical greater Syria, above the name Liwa al-Ummah.

Sitting in an empty classroom flanked by several Syrian and Libyan fighters, a soft-spoken Libyan-born Irish citizen named Mahdi al-Harati explains how he came to be the leader of Liwa al-Ummah. 

The brigade emerged, he says, after several Syrians, aware of his experience as commander of the Tripoli Brigade during the Libyan revolution, approached him about founding a similar outfit in Syria.

The Tripoli Brigade was one of the first rebel units into the Libyan capital in August 2011. Its fighters, who included many Libyan expatriates, had received training from Qatari special forces in Nalut, a town in Libya’s western mountains. After the fall of Tripoli, during which he participated in the battle for Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound, Harati was appointed deputy head of the Tripoli Military Council (TMC), serving under Abdel Hakim Belhaj, former leader of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. 

Last autumn Harati stepped down as commander of the brigade and as TMC deputy. He made his first trip to Syria shortly afterward for what he says was initially humanitarian work in the country’s northern borderlands. The idea for Liwa al-Ummah came this year.

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