US-Syrian woman keeps school going in al-Qaida-run region
ISTANBUL — When Syria’s uprising broke out, Rania Kisar left her job in the United States and returned home to join what she dreamed would be the ouster of President Bashar Assad and the building of a new Syria. Her main focus these days has been to keep Islamic militants from taking over the dream.
Syrian-American Kisar runs a school in the last main enclave in Syria held by the opposition, the northwestern province of Idlib. The strongest power in the territory is al-Qaida’s affiliate, and it is increasingly intervening in day-to-day affairs of administering the province. That means Kisar has had to become adept in manoeuvring to keep her school running.
Sometimes that means finding ways around, sometimes it means pushing back. Throughout, she knows why the militants keep trying to get their way: “If they don’t interfere, they won’t be considered powerful.”
Al-Qaida’s branch leads an alliance of factions known as Hayat Fatah al-Sham that dominates the opposition administration running Idlib. But the group has to tread carefully, balancing between its aim to control and its wariness of triggering a backlash from residents and other factions. So far, it has stayed relatively pragmatic: it takes every opportunity to show it is in charge but has shown no interest in a wide-scale imposition of an extremist vision of Islamic law.