{"id":2080,"date":"2012-01-31T10:04:02","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T17:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2080"},"modified":"2012-02-01T03:18:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T10:18:47","slug":"twd-inside-free-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2080","title":{"rendered":"TWD Inside Free Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Man vs War. I was so ill prepared for this trek. \u00a92012 Derek Henry Flood<\/p><\/div>\n

Antakya-<\/strong> I have a new article out in today’s edition of Asia Times Online<\/a> on my journey into rebel-held northern Syria. In over a decade of jihads, war zones and civil unrest, I think this was the most difficult thing I have ever accomplished in terms of logistics. My entire body is shot and at one point repelling down a muddy mountainside I slipped into a coil of concertina wire that my amazing fixer and smuggler had to rescue me from. Then while attempting to sprint through an Assadist free fire zone, I got trapped in mud so thick it might as well have been quicksand. On the way back I had to trek through pitch black forest that we lit with cell phones to try and find our way. For some reason we hiked back to Turkey a different way than we came in which was totally disorienting. We linked arms and forded a very fast moving icy river that was nearly waist deep lit by the moon while screaming “takbir<\/em>” and the corresponding “allahu akbar<\/em>” to steel our resolve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At that point my mind went into a trance-like state bent on pure survival. Then when I got back to the comfort of my hotel room in Antakya and collapsed on my bed, I stared at the ceiling and thought that I did this for one day and the rebels of Free Syrian Army live this way everyday. Hard to contemplate. I’ll be going back to the West in a couple of days (where I will be speaking at the Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers Winter Seminar<\/a> outside K\u00f6ln) and there is no way anyone can relate to what I’ve just experienced.<\/p>\n

In other news, TWD was quoted in a Global Post<\/a> article titled “African Union Looks Eas<\/a>t” about the inauguration of China’s gaudy new African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which I reported on last year. Even that relatively innocent story ended up in a violent encounter when a paranoid Chinese government foreman ordered a hulking Ethiopian security guard to grab my camera and delete the contents of my flash card. They were unsuccessful due to my cunning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Antakya- I have a new article out in today’s edition of Asia Times Online on my journey into rebel-held northern Syria. In over a decade of jihads, war zones and civil unrest, I think this was the most difficult thing…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,48,9,536,41],"tags":[595,766,101,511,768,770,1128,763,764,769,1127,1107],"class_list":["post-2080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurgency","category-middle-east","category-non-state-warfare","category-syria","category-turkey","tag-addis-ababa","tag-antakya","tag-asia-times","tag-asia-times-online","tag-assad","tag-au","tag-ethiopia","tag-free-syrian-army","tag-fsa","tag-global-post","tag-syria","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\nTWD Inside Free Syria - The War Diaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/the-war-diaries.com\/?p=2080\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TWD Inside Free Syria - The War Diaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Antakya- I have a new article out in today’s edition of Asia Times Online on my journey into rebel-held northern Syria. 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