And all of a sudden the blindfold is ripped from the soldier’s eyes—revealing all four of the friends who were taken from the cell before him: alive and well, with their heads still attached.
“Just kidding!” yells General Mohammad, breaking into a wild laugh.
. . . Welcome to Syria.
KARM AL-JABAL
DECEMBER 31, 2012
New Year’s Eve and still alive, I thought with a smile. I sat in a run-down taxi in front of the driver’s house, waiting for him to come out and staring at the last cigarette in my pack. I’d planned on saving it to smoke it after I’d safely crossed the border back to Turkey, a superstitious habit I’d gotten into, but since the driver was taking so long I just lit up. Anyway, I was headed out of Syria for the last time.
I had been in and around Aleppo for eighteen days photographing the war from the Free Syrian Army’s side, and now that I had what I came for, it was time to go. It was my second time in the region but my first covering a war, and I didn’t want to push my luck. About a month and a half earlier I’d been in southern Turkey and Jordan photographing refugees for the Syrian American Medical Society. During that trip I made my first pilgrimage across the border into Syria to feel things out, and met all the contacts I would need to return and travel deeper inside the country, from fixers to rebels.
Photography had never really been a passion of mine, just something I was good at. What I loved was history, and traveling; hoping to find a career that combined what I was good at with what I loved brought me to Syria, after a year spent crossing the globe to test my abilities both with a camera and to communicate with people who didn’t understand a word I said. Recording history turned out to be something that came naturally to me, especially in a war zone.
I’d spent the day before in the Karm al-Jabal district of Aleppo, where some of the heaviest fighting in the country was under way. It was like nothing I had experienced so far, which is saying something, since I’d spent two and a half days outside the besieged Air Force Intelligence Directorate, or Jawiyya, at the time considered the most dangerous place in the city. Karm al-Jabal had been literally reduced to rubble, and I made my way to the front that morning with two FSA (Free Syrian Army) soldiers who were carrying giant blue jugs of water to the fighters. It felt like we were walking through Stalingrad; there wasn’t a building untouched by bullets or bombs. As we walked I noticed a woman in a black burka about two hundred yards away, standing in the middle of a street that was almost impassable due to all the downed poles, electrical wires, chunks of concrete, and other debris. After a quick exchange of yelling in Arabic between the rebels I was with and the woman in black, I snapped a shot of her walking into one of the doorways. I couldn’t believe people were still living there.
The front was probably a five-minute walk from where I was staying at FSA headquarters, but with all the precautions taken to avoid getting shot at it probably took close to fifteen minutes to get there. We had to stick to the sides of some buildings to keep out of range of snipers’ scopes and jet past others because there was no cover, but finally, after cutting through a factory and heading up some stairs, we arrived at the front, the top floor of an abandoned apartment building. Three of the most badass-looking FSA soldiers I had ever seen were sitting in front of a wood-burning stove. The first one who caught my attention was stunning to look at. He had dark skin and a black scarf wrapped around his entire face, revealing only these bright green eyes that glowed like emeralds and brought a certain elegance to the scene of carnage.
Nobody there spoke English. As soon as I arrived, they all jumped to their feet to greet me and offer coffee or tea. I declined, being that thanks to my nerves I already had to piss so bad it was practically coming out of my ears. When I looked out the window I noticed two small kids—maybe eight or ten years old—standing on the rooftop across the street from us, watching the fighting. They were surrounded by nothing but rubble and again I couldn’t believe people were still living in this section of the city.
The other two jihadis sitting with Emerald Eyes looked just as badass, but not as pretty. One gave the impression of being huge—he was only about my height, 5′11″, but much bulkier. Almost immediately he ran off and returned holding a digital camera, handing it over to show me the pictures. From the look of this guy I thought I was about to see some really horrific shit on that camera, but I don’t remember any of the images so it couldn’t have been that bad. The third jihadi had the least imposing presence, just a skinny kid with long hair, but he made up for that with zeal.
“Yala,” he said creeping over to the window with his AK-47. Let’s go.
One of the rebels who’d carried the water set me up against a wall on the side of the room that was out of the line of fire—or would be unless they shot through the walls, which was very possible. As soon as I was in position I gave him a nod and raised my camera. I just held my finger on the button while the jihadi stuck his skinny arms out of the window, letting loose a short burst of gunfire without even sticking his head out to
