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More than 50 tanks and military vehicles lay scattered and abandoned across the parade and training grounds of an army base in northern Syria, captured by rebels in their lightning-fast offensive that toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
The main garrison building bore the marks of two large explosions, but little sign of close-contact fighting. The assault was over in a day when the Syrian soldiers retreated, said Abu Muhammad, a rebel fighter guarding the base.
The government soldiers left behind a filthy jumble of army life: clothes, blankets, gas masks and helmets, and empty tin cans. Living conditions were primitive, with no windows or doors — instead, sacks or sheets of tin roofing were fixed over openings.
The base reflected the opportunity for a new government borne out of a well-prepared military campaign, bringing together different rebel groups, whose success surprised even its own fighters. But it also was a measure of the challenges ahead as they look to rebuild a country broken by more than a decade of civil war, depriving and depleting its military.
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