![](https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/1fdee9fb59eab26f79373ae2abf9e5b5.jpg)
Advertisement
Back in London, my parents were not too keen on my plans to travel to a country in the middle of a civil war. They thought I was going to get killed. My sister was really mad. I told them that I’d always wanted to be a war correspondent, and that if I ever was going to have a chance to become a real journalist, this was it. If people want news, somebody’s got to go cover it. But they didn’t care. They were upset.
The very next day, Carlos called. “Listen, man,” he said. “I’m going in. You coming or not?”
Advertisement
Advertisement
“Yeah, we’re journalists,” I said, in English. I think they understood me. “We want to get some coverage. Can you take us with you to the war?”Then another man appeared. He was a Syrian journalist and spoke some English. “Don’t worry,” he said, “These guys are Free Syrian Army. You can go with these guys. Trust me, you’re safe.”Naturally, we were a little bit uncertain. But we realized this was our only chance. So we thought, let’s just go for it and see what happens. It didn’t seem that dangerous.We all piled into a beat-up little hatchback Toyota. There were two soldiers in the front, fully armed, and the Syrian journalist, Carlos, and me in the back. The journalist translated for us and said that the soldiers were taking us to their base. There was no noticeable fighting in the towns we passed along the way; homes were still standing, and everything looked fine.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
![](https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/c74eab66403ea2c5482abdf8ae83b2be.jpg)
Advertisement
Advertisement
Maybe my innards heard it before my ears did, but a jet whizzed by just as I was thinking this.A huge, thunderlike sound exploded from above. My instincts were malfunctioning. I knew it was a bomb, but I just stood there, dumbfounded.A second later, another bomb dropped, followed by another tremendous boom that snapped me out of my stupor. I grabbed my stuff and starting running down the stairs. I was screaming Carlos’s name because I had no idea where he was, or whether he was even alive. I found him at the bottom of the stairs, terrified. I must have looked the same way.On the ground floor of the mall, shopkeepers scrambled to collect merchandise from their stores so as to not leave bait for the inevitable looters. Most of the FSA guys had already taken cover, except for the two rebels who stayed on the ground floor with us.A few minutes passed without incoming fire, enough time for everyone to relax a bit. Carlos started laughing, and I laughed along with him, the way you sometimes do after something really terrible and unbelievable has happened.
Advertisement
![](https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/130963b78f13934ac50a076e6247abc4.jpg)
Advertisement
I walked outside to see what had happened. A missile had hit a playground about 100 feet away from our base and left a huge crater in the ground. Another missile had torn a wall off a man’s home nearby.
Advertisement
(An FSA guy later translated for me exactly what the mob had said; but even without being able to understand their words in that moment, it was pretty clear they didn’t like us.)I didn’t know it then, but civilians in Aleppo are targeted because they’re in the vicinity of a rebel base. So there are tensions between civilians and the FSA. Later, I saw a bunch of FSA guys beat a shopkeeper when he asked them to get off of his roof. He was afraid a jet would bomb his store. The rebels got down off the roof and punched and kicked him, then locked him in his shop.But back to the mob: The people were just screaming at the FSA guys and throwing stones at them, and the FSA guys were shouting back, and the French journalists were recording it all. There are a lot of citizens in Aleppo who do not fully support what the FSA is doing. They don’t support what Assad is doing, either. There are, of course, plenty of people who do support the FSA. It’s just not everybody. The spectrum of views is varied and complex.
Advertisement
![](https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/8e56251dbdac4c246e2e1d2eee42b303.jpg)
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
![](https://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/95588dc1352205892d7d9209034f9638.jpg)
That was officially, without question, the end of my career as a war correspondent.For an overview of the issues that have fueled the conflict in Syria, we recommend reading "Road to Ruin," our condensed timeline of Syrian history, and "The VICE Guide to Syria," a crash course on the country's geopolitical, cultural, and religious complexities.