Syria rendez-vous with the rebellion

The deep, single boom announces a symphony of staccato gunfire, and the calm spring morning in Syria’s eastern mountains descends into chaos. Two rag-tag groups of Syrian Army defectors, part of a loose umbrella group commonly known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have just detonated a gas canister full of explosives beneath a Syrian army tank which was patrolling outside their village. Having left their hilltop hideouts late the night before, the 11 rebel soldiers are now executing their hastily planned attack. Their payload delivered, the rebels fight their way home beneath airburst anti-personnel artillery and withering fire from the Syrian Army; of the three wounded that day one would later die. Holed up in a small farm building on a cliff-top near the village of Janoudiyeh, this small group of defectors operating autonomously but in loose collaboration with similar groups in the area, is one of many such