Robin Yassin-Kassab:
"Before I went into the liberated areas I imagined the regime had been replaced by heavy-handed militias. It's not like that at all. No checkpoint stopped us. The men with guns were protectors, not oppressors. At least in the areas I visited, the people are ruling themselves. Someone with us has just left Damascus, where everyone is off the streets by 8pm. In liberated Kafranbel people walk the streets and play in pool halls at one in the morning. Even in Saraqeb, supposedly controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra, it's not like the Taliban's Afghanistan but like free Syria. we (one of us an uncovered woman) stopped to eat there - men, women and children were going about their business normally. Crumpled buildings and walls everywhere cratered with bullet holes show how 'secular' and 'resistant' the previous regime was."
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