Syrian Dust: Reporting from the Heart of the War

by Francesca Borri

  And you’re a woman. So they’re always asking you to write about women. Sure, that time when I wasn’t wearing the veil under my helmet and they were all men inside taking shelter, and they left me out under the mortars. Sure. It’s my most cited piece. But truthfully it was only that one time. It’s the other journalists, all men, I swear, who are always telling me: you’re not covered up enough, you’re not sitting modestly enough, your eyes aren’t meek enough, you don’t respect the local culture enough, and on and on—even though they’ve never opened a Koran. Like Jonathan that evening: they were bombing everything, and there I was huddled in the corner with that look that—what other look can you have?—that look that says maybe you’ll be dead in a minute, and Jonathan comes in, glances at me, and says: “This is no place for a woman.” What can you say to someone like that? You idiot, this is no place for anyone? It’s a sign of mental sanity if I’m terrified, because Aleppo is falling. The guys are all traumatized: Henri talks about nothing but war, Ryan is zonked out on amphetamines, and yet each time a child is torn apart, you’re the only one they come to, asking, “How are you holding up?” Because you’re a woman and fragile. And you feel like answering, “I’m holding up as well as you are.” Because the times I look distressed, in fact, are the times that I defend myself by pulling out every emotion, every feeling. They are the times I save myself.

  People think: Syria? But it’s a madhouse. A guy who can’t find a job enlists in Al Qaeda and there’s his mother chasing him through Aleppo to beat him up. A Japanese tourist at the front who is actually on vacation, I swear. There really is a Japanese tourist in Aleppo, and he really is at the front. His name is Toshifumi Fujimoto, honest to God, and he says he needs two weeks of adrenaline a year. Then there’s the Swede, a recent law graduate, who with his pen and Moleskine has come to gather evidence of war crimes, and he wanted to get to Damascus by hitchhiking. Or the American musicians with bin Laden beards—“So we’ll look like Syrians,” they say—even though they’re blond and six feet tall. They’ve brought medicine for malaria, though malaria hardly exists in Aleppo, and they want to distribute it while playing music, kind of like the Pied Piper. Not to mention various UN officials scattered here and there. You tell them there’s a child with leishmaniasis, “Can we treat him in Turkey?” No we can’t, the email apologizes, since it’s a specific child and we can only deal with children in general.

  And then there’s us. Because you’re a war reporter, and in the end you’re always a head above the others, right? With that hero’s aura, that invincible quality, you who risk your life to give the voiceless a voice. The last of the white knights, you who have seen things that others have never seen. You are a gold mine of stories; at dinner you’re the awesome guest, and people vie to have you over, and—and then you get there and discover equivocation everywhere. And everywhere you go, this mantra crops up: It’s confidential. Because instead of networking, putting up a united front, creating a union, here where everything is already so difficult, we are our own worst enemies. And that’s the reason the $70 per piece is not the result of lack of funds. Because there are always funds for a piece about Berlusconi’s girlfriends. The real reason is that you ask for $100 and someone else is ready to sell for $70. So there’s the fiercest competition among us, zero collaboration, zero support. Take Beatriz, for instance, who in April wanted to be the only one to report on a particular rally, so she directed me the wrong way and sent me into the snipers. Into the snipers! Over a fucking rally like a thousand others. And then we say we are here like Romenzi, like Alessio, here so that someday no one will be able to say, “I didn’t know.” When the only reason we’re here is to win an award, to finally get a couple of lines in return from the editor. To gain a foothold among all these photographers who are only chasing after a single shot, the icon, and don’t give a damn about the continuity and comprehensiveness of the narrative, about the complete picture. I say photographers solely because the writers are all comfortably situated in Turkey, most of them sprawled out on a couch reporting what the photographers tell them. And we’re here on our own, obstructing one another as if we had a Pulitzer-worthy story on our hands. Whereas we have absolutely nothing, caught between a regime that will only issue you a visa if you’re against the rebels and the rebels themselves who, like the regime, only allow you to see what they want you to see. It’s not as if you’re free when you’re with them. And the truth is that we’re a failure: after two years, readers can barely remember where Damascus is, and the world automatically thinks of Syria as “that Syrian mess,” because the world doesn’t know anything about Syria, aside from blood, blood, blood. And truthfully that’s why the Syrians hate us. Take that recent photo of the child with the cigarette and a Kalashnikov, for instance. It’s obvious that the photo is contrived, it’s plain as day, and yet it’s in all the newspapers now and everyone screams: “Those Syrians! Those Arabs! Those barbarians!” At first people used to stop me in Aleppo to say thank you, thank you for showing the world Assad’s crimes; the last time someone stopped me, he said, “Shame on you.”

  But then I’d be the first. Because if I had ever understood anything about this war, I would not have been afraid to love, afraid to take a chance in life, if only I had really understood anything about Syria, about this life that might end this second, instead of huddling against the wall a thousand times in my dark dank corner while everything around me exploded, instead of cowering there hopelessly regretting everything I had never had the courage to say, now that it was too late, too late for everything, and how could I have lost what was most beautiful to me? Because this is the only thing left to say about a war, the only piece that I really should have written. Now that it’s too late, rather than getting sidetracked with rebels, loyalists, Sunni, and Shia, the only thing to understand—the story that remained caught between my fingers: You who are able to, you who are alive tomorrow, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you love enough? The only thing to write, from amid my rubble, if only I had understood anything: You who have everything, why are you so afraid?

  in the end, even if you stay here for months, you’ll have only a scattered idea of Syria.

  For one thing because you are forced to choose. Choose whether to cover the Syria of Assad or the Syria of the rebels. And obtaining a visa from Assad is essentially impossible. That is, it’s possible if you’re satisfied with idling around the cafés in Damascus and writing under anesthesia. Writing about the tennis club, about the banker who assures you that everything is normal in Damascus, maybe just a little sadder than usual in the evening, in the restaurants, you know? They don’t have the fresh fish they once had. And the 110,000 deaths? It’s forbidden to enter Qusayr, Homs. Or Latakia, the city of the Assads, to meet some of those Alawites. Or the outskirts of Damascus, where there is fighting like there is in Aleppo, with everything exploding and toppling. Entry prohibited. But it’s not all that much different with the rebels. Not just because they only control scattered bits and pieces of territory, and therefore the war in Daraa, say, to the south on the border with Jordan, is a different war—with different brigades, it’s a different world. But because they, too, have their red zones declared off-limits. For instance, Atmeh. The border. The one the Islamists pass through. And you have to pass through it too, to get to Aleppo. But you can’t stop. Prohibited.

  And so the truth is that even if you stay here for months, you have only a fragmented idea of Syria.

  Aleppo, in the end, is only Aleppo.

  As for the rest of Syria, you read about it in the papers as you might if you were in Guatemala. In the Andes.

  Because the truth is that Syria is inaccessible, even when you’re in Syria.

  Raqqa, for example. Raqqa is one hundred miles from Aleppo, to the east. Toward Iraq. It has a population of 220,000. And more than 600,000 displaced persons. Because it was considered a marginal city, outside of the war’s Aleppo-Daraa corridor, and therefore a safe city; an
d many people thought of fleeing there. In the middle of the desert. But above all, Raqqa was the first provincial capital out of fourteen to be captured by the rebels. The first and the last. It was captured this year, in February 2013. In twenty days. Not thanks to the Free Army so much, actually, as to a decision by local leaders, who have always been relatively independent from Damascus, and at a certain point sided with the rebels. For one thing, because of its marginal status, Raqqa was guarded by army units that were not particularly spirited, so there was no prolonged battle as in Aleppo. Three weeks and it was over. But then, since there were no journalists around, the rebels will tell you: we captured Raqqa. But they don’t tell you how. Here, if one of the two sides doesn’t surrender, the fighting goes on forever, because neither of the two is strong enough to win, but both are strong enough not to lose.

  Strong enough to prevent the other from gaining power.

  One controls a city while the other goes on dropping bombs.

  In any case, Raqqa is now the first city to be entirely controlled by the rebels (while the regime, in fact, continues to bomb). And therefore everyone looks to Raqqa to form some idea of what a Syria without Assad might be like. A free Syria.

  Except that power, in Raqqa, was never handed over to the National Coalition. It was never returned to the Syrians. At first it was jointly exercised by the Free Army and by something termed the Religious Council in Support of the Revolution. The outcome: reconstruction was never begun, and not a single dollar went for water or electricity. For bread. For humanitarian aid. Just more and more sharia law. Because the priority, in Raqqa, with six hundred thousand displaced refugees, seems to be to enact laws against high heels and alcohol. To prohibit music and cigarettes. Sharia and looting, extortion, kidnappings: that’s what Raqqa is today. Apart from the bombings by the regime.

  Because power quickly fell into the hands of the Islamists. At the beginning, as was the case elsewhere, the Islamists had the trust and esteem of many. Unlike the Free Army, they actually tried to govern. To distribute food and medicine, to restore water, electricity. A minimum of public order. But it didn’t last long. And not just because of sharia. Not because of cigarettes. One of the principal brigades, the Ahrar al-Sham, robbed the bank of Raqqa and spent everything they stole on weapons. But most of all because Raqqa, along with Deir ez-Zor, farther south, is an oil region. And it’s rumored that there is a hush-hush agreement between the regime and the Islamists for the extraction and management of oil. Because everyone needs oil revenues to buy weapons. And while the rebels control the areas with the wells, the regime controls the areas with the pipelines. And so, for once, the regime and the rebels reached an immediate accord. Sunnis and Shiites.

  And there are other strange things going on.

  For example, Iran’s stamp on the passport of one of the rebel commanders.

  Iran. Assad’s most loyal ally.

  And the rebel headquarters, they have never been bombed. Never.

  And everyone knows where they are. Including me.

  Well, strange things. Things that don’t add up.

  And that’s why we journalists are allowed to go to Aleppo, but not to Raqqa.

  Not to Deir ez-Zor.

  In any case, Al Qaeda controls Raqqa directly now.

  The headquarters of the local brigade of the Free Army, the Ahfad al-Rasoul, the Descendants of the Prophet, was hit by four car bombs—for the first time, the Islamists attacked other rebels. And they are attacking more than that: they have set up their headquarters in a church and have hoisted their defiant black flag from the bell tower.

  As usual in the Middle East, in Syria minorities are a sketchy subject. The census surveys have never recorded ethnicity and religion: the available figures, 10 percent Christian, more or less, 12 percent Alawite, are merely estimates and approximations. It was the French, in the twenties, during the years of the Mandate, who focused on minorities, in accordance with the typical European policy of divide et impera, divide and conquer. In search of allies, they guaranteed the loyalty of the Alawites by promoting them to the highest ranks of the armed forces. With the Assads, then, starting in the seventies, political and economic power was linked to military power. And so today, out of about 200,000 career soldiers, the Alawites number about 140,000 and make up 80 percent of the officers. The two main elite corps in particular, the Republican Guard and the Fourth Armored Division led by Maher, Bashar’s brother, are exclusively Alawite.

  And so people say: the Alawite regime.

  They say: the revolt of the Sunni majority.

  Except that Loubna Mrie, in Aleppo, is also Alawite.

  Just as Jimmy Shininian, Raqqa’s most noted activist, is Christian.

  He is twenty-five years old, an engineer. And he is one of the many that we haven’t written about while focused on the blood at the front, focused on the easiest things. Except that his freedom also depends on us. Because if you only talk about those who are fighting, any revolution becomes a war.

  “I understand,” he says. “I realize that for all of you Syria is just one war among many. But for us,” he says, “this is our only life—it is not one life among many.”

  “In Syria, we never had these issues,” he says. “Declaring yourself a Christian meant being respected. The denominational conflict was imported by foreign fighters.” Who not only fill the ranks of the rebels. Just as the rebels would have been crushed without the jihadists, Assad would not have held out for long without Hezbollah either. “By now, we’re merely hostages of somebody else’s war. We haven’t only lost the revolution. We’ve lost Syria.

  “And it’s not true that the Islamists were critical. All the territories they now control were captured by the Free Army. What was taken from Assad here was taken from Assad by the Free Army.” And then taken again.

  “The vast majority in Raqqa is opposed to an Islamic state, and over half is more than opposed: it is outraged. But there is nothing we can do,” he explains. “They’re the ones who have weapons.”

  We heard the same words in Damascus two years ago.

  Only then it was in reference to Assad.

  the first photo arrived around five in the morning. A row of bodies.

  A father on his knees.

  But I’ve been getting rows of bodies for months now from Syria.

  For months I’ve been waking up at the same time, always to the same bodies. The same fathers on their knees. So I look at them distractedly.

  Just another row of bodies.

  And then they started resembling the bodies in the river, the ones in February. Because they were all in a row like that: all in order. One after the other. All the same. I buried my head in the pillow again and tried to sleep.

  The bodies seemed to be asleep too. One after the other.

  All orderly, tidy, all—

  All without blood. All without the slightest trace of blood.

  Or wounds.

  No bullets, bombs. All—

  Intact. All intact. And I opened my eyes.

  Photos and videos kept pouring in one after another, scores of children lying on the ground, naked, dozens and dozens, gasping, foaming at the mouth, their eyes bulging, runny. They coughed; they coughed and died. They died, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Eyes rolled upward, shaken by convulsions, they couldn’t be held still. The screaming.

  Foaming at the mouth, those bulging eyes. They coughed and died.

  I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Because it’s August 21, 2013. And that, sweet Jesus, is gas.

  rockets with chemical warheads, from what we’ve understood. Hurled down on Ghouta, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, during the night. Around two in the morning. A few miles from the bankers at the tennis club. Where they say there are restaurants, cafés, and there’s life as usual. Instead for months it’s been
a quagmire of fighting between rebels and regime, the usual battle in which no one advances.

  More than 1,300 dead.

  Actually, just a few miles from Ghouta, in Damascus, there are UN inspectors in addition to the bankers these days. At Assad’s request. Because it’s not the first time: gas has already been used in Syria. Apparently by both sides. The regime is said to have used the gas in Jobar, also near Damascus, in April. Two journalists from Le Monde, who by chance were there undercover, delivered a sample to a laboratory for blood and tissue testing. The result: sarin. The rebels, however, supposedly used chlorine, a more rudimentary saline solution, in March, in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo. Which is why Assad turned to the UN. But until now gas has always been used on a smaller scale, resulting in a few dozen deaths, and it is never used alone: always in support of conventional weapons. Always camouflaged by conventional weapons. To arouse no reactions.

  Because Obama had stated that this was Syria’s red line: chemical weapons.

  A year ago he said that the use of chemical weapons “would change my equation.”

  Meaning his assessment of the need for intervention.

  Now the rebels have the strongest incentive to use chemical weapons, the regime’s supporters immediately responded. Now the regime has the strongest incentive to use anything but chemical weapons, said the rebels’ supporters.

  A critically fatal statement spoken lightly, said everyone else.

  In any case we will never know the truth. Who it was, this morning. While the UN negotiates to have its inspectors go another ten miles farther into Ghouta, Assad is already bombing everything. And destroying all the evidence.

  It’s not that the Arabs are more barbaric than anyone else. The biggest gas stockpiles in the world today, though in the process of being dismantled, are still in the United States and Russia. Both of whom signed the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, in 1993,7 not because they are more enlightened than other countries, not in their wars in Pakistan or Chechnya, but as my international law professor Cassese once said, because they don’t need it. The reason why Syria has all these deposits of sarin is that gas is the nuclear weapon of the poor. Only Israel, here, has atomic power. So all that’s left for the others around them is gas. Or suicide bombings.