Rivalry sends Syrian rebels into disarray Rebel commander Ali Bello does not know who shot him outside Aleppo in northern Syria at the end of last month, but he is pretty sure who did not. "The regime cannot send anyone to this area," he says, implying that it may have been someone from a rival rebel group. The 26-year-old admits he has made some enemies. He claims to have been supplying most of the weapons to rebels in Aleppo province until recently, and says he declined to give them to some groups because he was not convinced they were playing a useful role. Now a military council brings the weapons into Aleppo and Mr Bello says those running it are refusing to supply him. He is unfazed by the setback: he buys from dealers inside Syria instead. The circumstances surrounding Mr Bello's shooting may not be clear, but his story highlights the tensions between rebel groups in Syria as the 19-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad drags on with no end in sight. Despite a recent push to unify the disparate armed opposition groups under a single command, rebels are struggling to form stable alliances even at a local level, a problem opposition sources say is exacerbated by the array of different donors competing for influence in Syria. According to another rebel who has been fighting in Aleppo, some people have already started to stockpile ammunition for "after the revolution." His comment underlines fears that a post-Assad Syria could be blighted by armed militias. Libya, where militias helped overthrow Colonel Muammer al-Gaddafi, has been unable to disband the armed groups, one of which allegedly killed Chris Stevens, the US ambassador, in Benghazi last month. Mr Bello, a former builder, says he commands around 2,000 fighters, who were recently given the name Ahrar al Suriya, or the Free Men of Syria. Though his original core of fighters are from the town of Anadan, north of Aleppo, like other groups from the surrounding countryside, he joined the fight for Aleppo city when Liwaa al-Tawhid, an Islamist-tinged alliance of fighters, announced that they were going to capture the town in July. "I didn't want the FSA to enter Aleppo," he recalls during an interview in southern Turkey, where he is recovering from the bullet wound in his left arm. He thinks the campaign to take the city has cost too many lives and resources, when they should have been focusing on the regime's military bases. But we had to go in order not to lose popularity. Aleppo has been the proving ground of rebel units, and the array of fighters there reflects the spectrum of the opposition, ranging from fundamentalist Salafists to moderate Islamists, and those like Mr Bello, a tracksuited smoker who eschews religious symbols - each with their own sources of outside patronage. Rebels have co-operated to some extent on the frontline. "We are ready to ally with the devil in toppling Bashar," says another fighter, who claims to have fought alongside the extremist group the Al Nasra front in Aleppo. The group's fighters are happy to die, he says, which means they can go in to places other fighters are reluctant to enter. "They drink tea under shelling," his friend adds, awed. But concern about rivalry between the different groups as they compete for resources and territory is growing. Rebels in southern Turkey say that an initiative is under way to combat this by channelling weapons donated by outside backers through local military councils, who are supposed to distribute them to deserving and accountable groups. But as Mr Bello's case suggests, even this scheme works, Syria's flourishing internal arms market blunts its effectiveness as tool for unification. Financial support from outside donors, some of whom have distinct political and ideological agendas in Syria, also remains far from streamlined. "It's impossible," says the rebel fighter from Aleppo. This (rebel unity) will only happen when the donors are unified. Many fear these divisions will become more pronounced in the future. In Kafranabel, a small town in the northern province of Idlib, a cartoon was hoisted at last Friday's demonstration depicting the Syrian revolution as a man whose limbs are torn off as they reach out to different hands bearing dollars. Mr Bello, who refuses to be drawn in to speculation on who might have shot him, places toppling the regime and stopping "sick" people from taking over the country at the top of the list of the revolution's priorities. When asked which is going to be hardest to achieve, he pauses for a minute, then fires back: "Both."