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العربية
Siding and standing by the oppressed or demanding your right to basic human needs and dignity meet the adequate requirements to have your name blacklisted in the Assad-regime’s wanted list, and if so, you might spend the rest of your life between the bars of its barbarous jails.
The youth in Deir Ezzor were no different from other people in Syria; they waited for the right moment to demand freedom and call for the overthrow of the regime. They were determined and firm on their path that they were prepared to leave all their comfort and material joy behind in order to achieve their elevated goals. Some even quitted their scientific studies and overlooked the bright future awaiting them at the time for the sake of the revolution and, most important of all, they offered their priceless lives.
Hussein Al-Mejlad, also called Abu Fatima, was born in the city of Al Shaheel , Deir Ezzor’s eastern countryside. He was known for his strong opposing views with regards to the regime since the spark of the Syrian Revolution was lit in the early spring of 2011. Abu Fatima worked in Qatar as a warrantor of trucks, and he owned some of them as well. He was a rich man who lived in luxury; however, his social position did not avert him from joining his Syrian brethren in anti-Assad protests.
One day, he coincidently happened to be in Deir Ezzor on vacation when the spark was ignited in the southern Syrian city of Deraa. Consequently, he immediately began to incite the people in his village to protest against the tyranny of the regime and show their solidarity with other rebellious provinces in Syria. He was fully aware that he would lose his job because of this, but he carried on his revolutionary activism in the province of Deir Ezzor until he managed to light the spark that would later set off protests in the whole countryside of Deir Ezzor. He had the honor to lead the first protest in rural Deir Ezzor, which called for freedom and overthrow of the regime. Then, he made up his mind and left his job in Qatar to commit the rest of his life to the revolution, hoping to overthrow the regime and live in dignity after it.
Abu Fatima was the building block for any protests held in the city of Al-Shaheel, and as the protests became a commonplace in the city; he, along with some of his comrades, had to protect the protestors from the savagery and truculence of the regime security branches in the province. As the regime started to raid houses belonging to the protesters and arrest some of them, Abu Fatima formed his teams whose goals were to stick up for the protesters and secure the city. They were dispatched to all entries and exists in the city and tasked with sending intelligence to Abu Fatima whenever there were potential regime raids or something like it. Abu Fatima’s house was once raided by a group of security forces who destroyed all of the equipment found in his house after they failed to catch him.
After the regime resorted to the use of violence and arms to crack down on the protests, Abu Fatima began to establish a network whose aim was to establish relationships with the people in neighboring villages in order to coordinate and hold off the regime campaigns. With the rise in the pace of events in Deir Ezzor, with the regime deploying his army to the province, Abu Fatima switched to armed military operations to defend civilians, which made him among the first who stood up and confronted Assad forces in Deir Ezzor and its countryside.
In a time where the FSA were few in numbers, around dozens, Abu Fatima and his comrades were delivering heavy blow to the Assad-regime by conducting military raids on its check posts across the countryside and its security branches in Al- Myadin, Al- Bassira, Al-Quriya and Al-Tayana. His name became like a nightmare for the Assad forces operating in the province of Deir Ezzor at the time, they would shake in their shoes whenever they heard his name.
He was characterized by his excessive boldness and bravery, which was rare at the time, and he remained firm on his path until he fell martyr while attempting to plant an explosive device in one of the regime security branches in the city of Al-Mayadin at night on July 30, 2012. His martyrdom initiated a massive revolution in both Deir Ezzor and the heart of every person that knew him.
