Sprinting through a gap in the barbed wired at the border between Turkey and Syria as a Turkish armored vehicle pursued us and soldiers fired warning shots in the air. Waiting in a Syrian pomegranate grove for our ride: a pair of veteran Syrian rebels driving a pastel yellow Hyundai. Shaking hands. Swapping cigarettes. Wrapping my face in a checkered scarf to hide my very American-looking features.
Climbing a mountain road through Harem, a town in northern Syria where, earlier this year, a band of amateurish Islamic terrorists held three German aid workers and several Syrians captive, torturing them, starving them, holding out for ransoms that were never paid—and fleeing Harem after the three Germans broke their locks and escaped.
