Scenes from Inside Aleppo: How Life Has Been Transformed by Rebel Rule

'This infighting provokes the anger of residents in the rebel neighborhoods. Many blame these disputes, and the resulting lack of coordination, for halting the rebels’ advance. In more idealistic days, someone drew a mural on a wall in the Al-Ferdous neighborhood—it shows an F.S.A. fighter bleeding. The original caption read: “(People) forgive us if we make mistakes. We, the F.S.A., are dying for you.”

On it, someone added the word “liar.”

This anger boils when the sky starts raining barrel bombs.
Around me, men shouted, their faces strained and their words indistinguishable. Women wept hysterically. Children screamed. A policeman warned the crowd: “Civilians leave now! There’s a helicopter in the sky. He’s going to do it again!”

The Syrian air force has a habit of following their first barrel bomb with a second. People say this is to kill first responders. (The government still denies that it uses barrel bombs.)

Despite this, the crowd did not run away. They dug in the rubble with their bare hands—old men, Civil Defense volunteers, and militants alike—all except the media activists shooting video. When they found a victim, they gathered to help snatch them out, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as they did. Once they laid the victim in an ambulance, they began to dig again.'