As Syrian rebels from across the political spectrum went on the attack against the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria early last month, ISIS’s comrades in arms in the nearby province of Latakia didn’t miss a beat in their strange mode of war. They attacked three civilian hospitals.
In Rabiaa, a village in northwest Latakia, 15 ISIS gunmen arrived in three cars, arrested moderate rebel guards protecting the building and then stormed the hospital, according to Brig. Gen. Ahmad Rahal, who commanded the moderate rebels.
Hospital staff helped two wounded moderate rebels escape to the nearby al Yamdiah hospital. The ISIS gunmen followed them there. Then they stormed that hospital, killing one wounded rebel and abducting the second, Rahal said. The staff closed the hospital in protest, and ISIS later handed back the patient.
Meanwhile, ISIS forces attacked the al Biranas hospital, run by the Belgian branch of Doctors Without Borders, where they abducted five foreign doctors: from Belgium, Denmark, Peru, Sweden and Switzerland. All are still missing.
In the midst of the melee, a day after ISIS gunmen took over the guard posts at Rabiaa, the Syrian army bombed and destroyed the Rabiaa hospital, Rahal said.
Why ISIS was attacking hospitals in Latakia when its own forces were being besieged elsewhere in the country by other rebel factions is unclear. It may have been a sign that its commanders were confused about what was going on or that local commanders were unaware of what was taking place elsewhere. Or it could have been another example of the strange priorities of the Iraq-based movement that until recently had been viewed as part of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Not until late last year did a pattern emerge of ISIS attacking “soft” targets. In the final months of 2013, ISIS increasingly raised anger as it abducted doctors, reporters, media activists and aid workers and closed down hospitals and media offices. By late last month, ISIS forces had set up so many checkpoints that they could halt the movement of people and goods across the Turkish border, including arms for other rebel forces.
The pattern of ISIS assaults is a controversial aspect of its move from Iraq to becoming a dominant force in the Syrian rebellion. Moderate rebels say it suggests a relationship between ISIS and the Syrian government. Others, including U.S. officials, say they think ISIS is pursuing its own agenda, which just happens to benefit the Assad government.
ISIS’s emergence “and its determination to sow discord within the opposition must have prompted celebration among Syrian regime officials,” conceded a U.S. official who follows the situation in Syria, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. But he said the United States doubted there was a relationship between the two, and speculated that as long as ISIS was focused on attacking other rebels, “the regime may have reason to treat the group with kid gloves.”
“They are benefiting from its tactics,” the official said.
That leaves some odd situations. At Ad Dana, for example, a town on the Syrian-Turkish border that ISIS turned into its command center, the group set up in the municipal building, raising an enormous black flag outside. Only one part of the town was not under ISIS control: the hospital, about 500 yards away, guarded by forces who’d declared themselves part of the moderate Free Syrian Army. On Dec. 23, a Syrian jet bombed the hospital, destroying the emergency wing and killing a doctor and a nurse, according to aid organizations and local activists.
Officials of three Syrian medical associations said ISIS had stormed a number of hospitals in past months, seizing or assassinating patients and abducting medical personnel. Its drive against hospitals has led to an exodus of doctors from Syria, adding to an already severely strained health care system.
One official of a Syrian relief organization that operates in the country and claims to be neutral in the conflict said his group had suffered from both the government and ISIS. He asked to remain anonymous so that his comments wouldn’t affect his organization’s ability to work.
Last April, he said, his organization had attempted to send medical supplies to Ghouta, just east of Damascus, but came under attack from regime forces. “We lost 13 people: seven killed and six arrested,” he said. In November, his group organized a second aid shipment, and this time it was seized by ISIS in an attack that left one aid worker dead and one wounded.