"I cooperated with the state while I was in university. I used to go and come back and communicate with them," she said. "And I would go to demonstrations supporting the president."

One might assume the United Courts Council had been formed to create a rival judicial structure to the Syrian government, which is believed to control a quarter to a third of Aleppo.

But a visit to the office of Gayed, the council's prosecutor, revealed political tension between rival rebel groups.

The suavely dressed former judge had a half dozen guests seated around his desk, most of whom were lawyers hoping to set up a similar court in the opposition-held northern town of Maraa.

There was also a stocky, bearded man dressed in a camouflage uniform who quickly excused himself after journalists entered the room.

"The man was here from Jabhat al-Nusra," Gayed explained after the man left. "He was asking me to hand over a prisoner to his court system. I said no."

Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, is a well-organized Islamist fighting group. The U.S. government recently black-listed the group, accusing of it being a terrorist organization.

"We black-listed the Nusra Front because of its intimate links with al Qaeda in Iraq," said Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, in an interview with CNN in Turkey.

"Nusra has a sectarian agenda ... (it) is anti-democratic and will seek to impose its very strict interpretation of Islam on Syria," Ford said.

But Gayed, asked about al-Nusra, called its members "our brothers in the revolution. They bleed for it. But we differ on how to build the state."

"We are calling for a civil democratic nation. They call for an Islamic state," he said. "The U.S. and the European Union didn't help us, and that created an increase in Islamic radicalism. ...

"Up until now we can control the situation," Gayed warned. "But later on, we may not be able to contain it."

Gayed argued his council's experiment in rebel justice is a more tolerant alternative to the Islamic courts that Nusra Front has reportedly been establishing in Aleppo and in other rebel controlled towns.

The United Courts Council is working to expand its law-and-order model to other communities in the largely rebel-held north.

It is a desperate strategy, council members admitted, aimed at preventing Syria from descending further into chaos