ALEPPO, Syria — On July 3, a number of opposition-affiliated syndicates in Aleppo’s countryside announced the establishment of the Federation of Free Syndicates at the headquarters of the Free Syndicate of Lawyers in Khan al-Asal in western Aleppo, which is under the control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The federation includes the Free Lawyers Syndicate, the Syrian General Union of Teachers in Aleppo, the Aleppo Free Pharmacists Syndicate, the Association of Free Syrian Engineers, the Syndicate of Economists, the Media Union of Aleppo and its Countryside, as well as the Sharia Council in Aleppo province. All members of these syndicates reside in opposition-controlled areas in the northern and western countryside of Aleppo.

The seven syndicates elected the head of the Association of Free Syrian Engineers, Yahya Kanaan, as president of the Federation of Free Syndicates. The heads of the other syndicates and of the Sharia Council were appointed members of the newly formed federation’s council.

According to its founding statement, the Federation of Free Syndicates aims to serve the interests of the revolution and those of syndicate members, so as to allow civil society to serve its real purpose, to achieve the revolution’s goals and to build a new free Syrian state.