The original version of this article, by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, appeared on The Guardian.

A northern wind had been blowing since early morning, lifting a veil of dust that had blocked the sun and turned the sky the color of ash. Abu Zayed was sitting on the porch of his unfinished concrete home, watching the storm build. He loved sandstorms. They reminded him of Dubai, where he had lived before the war. He admired the people there for turning a desert into a paradise. They had vision, he told his followers.

Six months ago, he left the Gulf emirate to join the Syrian revolution, attending opposition conferences in Istanbul and Cairo, jostling for position on behalf of his father, the leading sheikh of a powerful tribe in eastern Syria.

But Abu Zayed soon became disgusted with the bickering among the rebel leadership. “There is an opposition council in every hotel lobby in Istanbul,” he said. “You can’t distinguish them from the regime.”

Instead, like other disaffected tribal leaders, Abu Zayed returned home to his ancestral land and put his energy into building up his clan, taking control of his energy-rich ancestral lands.

Continue reading on The Guardian.

Photo Credit: Billboard of Bashar al Assad and Hafez al Assad, courtesy of flickr user james_gordon_losangeles.