The following is an excerpt. Read the full piece here.
ANTAKYA, Turkey — A rebel commander named Mohamed Zataar sat on a living room couch in the ancient Turkish city of Antakya one recent night, taking a short break from the war across the border with Syria some 15 miles down the road. He was eager to return. “There is a new battle starting,” he said, staring at the door. Instead Zataar, who leads a battalion of moderate rebels called Wolves of the Valley, decided to call his enemy from his iPhone.
He dialed the number for the shadowy jihadi known as Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, one of the most notorious men on the chaotic battlefields of northern Syria. Abu Ayman doesn’t fight for the Syrian regime. He’s a leader in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the al-Qaeda-inspired force that has upended the rebellion with its fanaticism and brutality — while also kidnapping Western journalists and raising global alarms that the foreign fighters who fill out its ranks will return to sow terror at home.
Other rebel groups turned on ISIS at the start of the new year, sparking an internal war that men like Zataar, a former dealer of fake antiques who despises extremists, were happy to join. “We are fighting a war against terror,” Zataar said. Someone answered on the other line, and Zataar asked to speak with Abu Ayman, whom he referred to as “sheikh.” Then he hung up, saying it wasn’t uncommon for the two men to speak. An hour later, Abu Ayman called back.
The long conversation that followed — full of threats and insults, religious debates and petty disputes — opened a rare window into an internal conflict that has changed the landscape of Syria’s civil war, as homegrown fighters try to wrest back the rebellion from the radicals who have increasingly defined it both inside Syria and abroad. The two commanders jawed at each other for more than 90 minutes, with Zataar putting his phone on speaker so this reporter could listen and record. It showed the battle’s strange intimacy, and the new confidence of men like Zataar as they fight to reclaim their turf.
The call also offered a unique and candid look at the mindset of ISIS at its leadership level, showing the group’s fear and isolation inside Syria — and above all, a deep-rooted suspicion of U.S. influence that makes ISIS see rival rebels as agents of America and its allies, sent to destroy them, and leaving little room for compromise.