One man's account of what's happening in Syria

Worth reading in full to gauge, even if somewhat vaguely, what happens when war comes calling.

Jess Hill, ABC producer and reporter for ABC Radio’s AM, The World Today and PM writes:
 ....“I’ve always hated the Free Syrian Army,”  he says. “They changed the whole revolution. It’s not their right to impose weapons. They are the reason a lot of people now get killed.”.....

.....But the brigades attracting the most funds — which come predominantly from rich, conservative donors in the Gulf — are those who observe the most austere Islamic practices. The easiest way for Syrian rebels to raise money now, it’s commonly said, is to grow a beard.....

.....When I met Abdul in March this year, already he was wary of the Free Syrian Army. “You should hear the stories people (coming over the border) tell me about the fighters,” he said one night in Antakya, an ancient little town close to the Turkish-Syrian border. He was volunteering then as an English teacher at a makeshift school for Syrian refugees, and in his spare time he worked with me as an interpreter, a job for which he refused to take money. “It’s for the cause,” he insisted.

Just a few months earlier, Abdul’s fiancée had died suddenly from brain cancer. It happened so quickly, he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Now he was alone in Turkey, relying on his brother in the United States for financial support.

On his late fiancée’s urgings, Abdul had become a vegetarian, and, being an observant Muslim, he didn’t drink alcohol. His only vice, it seemed, was a deep affection for shisha smoking. But Abdul’s most striking attribute was his refusal of ideology, and his commitment to telling the truth. Interpreting for a group of Syrian activists who were clearly being dishonest, Abdul insisted that we report on it, even though it could mean trouble for him in Antakya (“Syria’s Propaganda War”, April 12). “It's your job to show the truth, no matter how ugly,” he said intently, exhaling sweet apple tobacco smoke. “People must know the truth."

Four months later, when Abdul heard that the Free Syrian Army had finally entered Aleppo, he says he “kind of freaked out”. At the front of his mind was the destruction of Homs, particularly the massacres that followed the Free Syrian Army’s retreat from Baba Amr in February. “I knew that wherever the FSA goes, destruction follows,” he says.

After several weeks of gruesome news reports and anxious phone calls, Abdul decided he had to see the war in Aleppo for himself. He arranged for his cousin, now fighting with Liwa al-Tawhid, to meet him at the border. Then he caught a flight from Beirut to Istanbul, and onwards to the Turkish-Syrian border. When the time came to cross over from Turkey into Syria, Abdul simply climbed through a hole in the fence........



The vid above is from July, 2012.