ALEPPO, Syria—Late one January night, two balaclava-clad security officers with Syria’s new government were speeding through the streets of Aleppo in pursuit of a man who had been spotted stealing fuel from a parked car.

       The middle-aged officers screeched to a halt, jumped out and ran through a small park with their flashlights and Kalashnikov rifles. An older woman called out in the dark to check that the men making the commotion were, indeed, the new authorities. The thief got away.

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