Bunkered down in his base just north of Hama, Captain Mustafa of the Free Syria Army (FSA) is getting used to the Russian airstrikes. And he is growing just as accustomed to the assurances of his American backers: “We can have most of the weapons we want,” he says. “But nothing to shoot down the planes.”



More than a week since the Russian strikes began targeting them, and days after the US announced an end to its efforts to train forces to fight Isis, the original anti-Assad rebels of Syria’s north-west remain entrenched, though battered, in the towns and villages of their heartland.



Nearby, Syrian forces, which had barely moved for the past year, are trying to advance from the south, said Mustafa, the military spokesman of an FSA unit, Tajamul Ala’Azza. Further away in the north-east, Isis has made its strongest gains in many months, advancing across the top of Aleppo, while a mix of opposition groups clash nearby with Russian jets and artillery.



“The Russians have given them a boost, which is what they wanted to do by attacking the Syrian people,” said Mustafa. “The biggest disaster for them would be to acknowledge that a real opposition remains defiant and strong.



“Well, we say to the Russian bear that we will chase you to your grave. You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into.”



Among the rebel groups, of northern and western Syria, a reckoning has been taking place ever since Moscow ramped up its efforts to defend Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this month. The opposition has been gaming whether its allies would follow suit, giving them the firepower it had long withheld to combat the threat from the skies.



So far the answer is no. “It’s the same as it’s always been,” said Mustafa. “Our supply lines are still open, but we still can’t get any anti-aircraft missiles. The Americans have never changed their position on that.” he sighed. “That’s politics.”



Rebels in the vicinity of the regime strongholds of Tartous and Latakia, and the nearby Alawite hinterland, have been hit especially hard in the Russian offensive which was touted as a campaign against Isis, but which the US, Nato, and rebel groups claim has almost exclusively targeted non-jihadi opposition groups.



Other rebel groups in Idlib province have also been pounded and fear that Russia’s strategy is to destroy the opposition, leaving only the regime army and Isis standing. The Russian offensive west of Aleppo has stymied an opposition squeeze on the city. Meanwhile, Isis’s moves since Thursday have seen the terror group gain more ground than it had in many months.



“While the Russians were busy attacking us, they left [Isis] completely alone. Do I really need to spell out what’s behind all that?” asked Abu Saleh, a commander of an Islamist group near the town of Hreitan.



Ayad Abu al-Majd, a leader of another FSA group, Tajammu al-Ghab said opposition groups that had been directly backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US had been told that the end of Washington’s $500m program to raise a force to fight Isis had no implications for them. But, faced with a new, more powerful foe and weapons that continue the fight, but not end it, the rebels fear that US support for them may also crumble.



“What did we do before the Americans support us,” asked al-Majad. “We stole weapons from the regime. And now we will do the same if the Americans decide they won’t support us. We will fight till our last drop of blood, this is our only option.



“We have lots of support from our friends, the real friends of the Syrian revolution which are six or seven countries. Some are providing us with money and others with weapons but of course the US and Saudis are our main supporters.



“Our support is coming to us with speed of a turtle but the regime is getting support from the Russians with the speed of a deer. I’m not saying the Americans and the Saudis didn’t give us support but it is not as fast as we need it to be.”



Over the past two years, the US has tried to vet rebel groups in the Mediterranean heartland and along the Jordanian border, where Isis has been unable to establish a foothold. It has frequently been at odds with Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have all urged that battle-changing weapons, such as anti-aircraft rockets be handed over. Washington has consistently refused their introduction, fearing that they could instead be used to attack civilian aircraft in Syria, and elsewhere.



As the Russian attacks continue, new waves of refugees are on the move in Syria’s north. “Our families are trapped and there is nowhere to go to apart from hiding under the trees by the Turkish borders,” said al-Majad. “We prefer to die with dignity in our towns than dying in shame under the trees.”



Residents in the areas hit by Moscow late last week described widespread destruction of houses and buildings. “The destruction is incredible, and all of them are civilian homes,” said Adnan Kanjo, the head of the local council in Derrat al-Izza in western Aleppo. “This is the first time we see destruction at this scale. There is intense fear and terror – we can’t even open our schools.”



“The regime’s planes could bomb maybe one or two buildings, but now a whole district is destroyed. There is no specific time and we can’t take any more precautions. If you are destined to get killed you will get killed.



“These Russian warplanes say they are targeting Daesh [Isis],” he added. “Well, we have not had Daesh here in over a year. Marea [which Isis is besieging] is 60km away. And al-Bab [which it controls] is over 100km away. The bombing is targeting civilians. And where are the people going to go? I leave this question to be answered by the people who still have a conscience.”



Mohammad al-Ibrahim, a resident of Maarat al Numan, in Idlib province said: “Whenever they hear [planes], the families run into these small caves that they dug up in the ground a while ago. My little brothers’ faces go pale … and they don’t utter a word for 20 minutes.”



A resident of the town of Atshan in eastern Hama, not far from the Tajamul Ala’Azza base said rebel units had developed an effective routine to hide from the airstrikes, but civilians remained exposed and often helpless.



“The Free Syrian army fighters are protected, they can take shelter underground, and the planes aren’t having much of an effect on the progress of the battles on the ground,” he said. “But what pains the fighters is the civilian deaths and how they are forced to leave their destroyed homes.



“The main thing the regime has achieved is displacing civilians, and this trend will grow and these people will reach the border and try to leave Syria for Europe and other places, because there is no safe place for them or their children, and civil society cannot provide for their needs.”



With little access to opposition areas of Syria, aid agencies say it is next to impossible to quantify how many civilians have been displaced by the intensified fighting. Civic leaders in Idlib and Hama say thousands of families have left for the Turkish border, intending to join the migration route to Europe.



“They are not running from [Isis],” said Mahmoud Qubaisi, a resident of the Hama countryside. They stayed because there is no Isis here. We’re the ones who chased the terrorists away more than a year and a half ago. Not the Russians.”



Using anti-tank missiles supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Tajamul Ala’Azza and a second group whose members had been vetted by the CIA, Liwa Suqour al-Jabal, this week claimed to have damaged or destroyed more than 10 regime tanks and armoured troop carriers near Hama, and to have repelled several ground attacks in areas hit by airstrikes.



An official from Liwa Suqour al-Jabal confirmed that the group is supported by states that are “friends of Syria” – a list topped by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.



“If their war is by planes, we can’t do anything about it, but we challenge the Russians to come fight us face to face in the liberated lands, and we want the friends of Syria to supply us with long-range and anti-aircraft weapons.”