Matthieu Aikins, a fellow at the Nation Institute (yes, that Nation), has an inspiring and heartbreaking look into a part of the Syrian civil war you probably haven’t heard about: the work of Syrian civilian first responders, who don white helmets and hop into a truck as soon as they hear a bomb hit an apartment block. Or sometimes they wait a bit to respond, because regime helicopters often drop one of their improvised “barrel bombs,” hundred-pound gas tanks filled with TNT and pieces of rebar, and then drop another a while later to hit responders, victims, and any crowd that’s gathered.

In any case, there are all kinds of lessons to be learned from the work of these civilians — Aikins profiles a group in Aleppo (Syria’s largest city, divided between rebel and regime control) that’s part of a national organization called Civil Defense teams. The Civil Defense squads were, incidentally, recipients of some of that vaunted non-lethal humanitarian aid and training, via Turkey, that the U.S. has been sending to Syria: They were trained in various rescue techniques and had passed on skills to their fellow first responders, while Western aid had also bought them a German rescue truck.

But, alas, their work hasn’t quite made them the heroes of Aleppo. In fact, while they work for the city council, which is “in theory” subordinate to the Syrian National Coalition, the Western-friendly government-in-exile that includes the Free Syrian Army, the rebels’ moderate armed forces that aren’t all that forceful or well-armed. This hasn’t gone so well: The good-guys city council is corrupt and petty, promoting, for instance, an untrained but college-educated friend of the council to run the Civil Defense groups in Aleppo. This hasn’t really stopped the first responders, but it certainly hasn’t helped them, because the local government is actually in thrall to whatever rebel groups are best armed. And right down to their rescue equipment, you can guess who that is:

As [Khaled Hajjo, head of a neighborhood Civil Defense team] stood in front of the [local] fire station, a red fire truck cruised slowly by. It was much larger and nicer than his, and the three heavyset men in the cab were wearing civilian clothes and had large, fan-shaped beards and shaved mustaches. It was Jabhat al Nusra, the local Al Qaeda affiliate. They had their own fire brigade, and the city council gave them the best of the donated equipment. Seeing Khaled’s uniform, the men smiled and waved. He dragged on his cigarette and returned the gesture half-heartedly.

The infamous Islamic State doesn’t have a real presence in Aleppo, yet, but it’s gradually been taking towns outside of the ancient city in recent months. The story of Khaled and his team is just one little example of how far Syria is from having a competent group of rebel forces that can work with the West, let alone a competent government. But the training and aid that they got from the West in Turkey was helpful — a concerted effort to back the rebels and groups the West likes (if we are even capable of identifying who they are) can make a big difference, so scarce are resources in Syria.