Playing ‘Cat and Mouse’ with the Syrian Army

Another ‘we sneaked into Syria’ story. A brave journalist and photographer spent time with the FSA in Idlib. I’m not sure what to make of this. Opinions on Twitter please, @ me (@syrianews).

Two hundred men and children shouted anti-Assad chants, drums beat loudly and people lifted their arms, swayed and waved flags and banners. Suddenly, a hail of bullets flew from the rooftops, the crowd scattered and chaos ensued. FSA fighters charged towards the bullets, returning fire, and we followed close on their heels. As the two sides exchanged fire, we found ourselves in the middle of a terribly one-sided gun battle.

As with all these engagements, the FSA’s strategy is to return a bit of fire and then pull back; There is little they can do against the vastly superior weapons of the army.

We had retreated to our hideout when suddenly a group of flustered men ran in. The army had been tipped off that western journalists were in the country and that we had filmed them opening fire onto the protests. They had left their base and were making a move to capture us.

Read the full story at VICE Magazine. Will this divide opinions like the same magazine’s Paintballing with Hezbollah did?

by Syria News Wire

The Syria News Wire is written from Damascus and London. It was the fourth Syrian blog to appear on the internet – back in 2004. It is a Lonely Planet favourite, award nominated, Toot-ified blog, which gets about 15,000 hits a month. In 2008, Damascus became the Arab Capital of Culture. The year was packed full of events. Every month, a programme was published – but it didn’t hit the streets until half the month had passed. In Damascus, that doesn’t matter. We find out what’s happening by word of mouth. And the same goes for news, or plans for the city’s development. This site puts some of those whispers on to the net. News from the streets of Damascus, and beyond.

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