Escape from Aleppo by N. H. Senzai

Author:N. H. Senzai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

Chapter Nineteen

July 19, 2012

A red-stained bandage covered Jad’s shoulder. His skin was a pasty gray from all the blood loss. Hand trembling, Nadia wiped her brother’s forehead with a cool towel, as she’d been instructed by Khala Lina, to keep his fever down. Her aunt had removed the bullet from his back, and now he battled to keep a life-threatening infection at bay.

“How is he?” her mother whispered from the doorway.

“The painkiller seems to be working,” replied Nadia, biting her lip. “He’s been out for over four hours.”

“I still don’t understand how he and Malik ended up at the mosque across town for Friday prayers in the first place,” grumbled her mother, for the hundredth time. She stared down at her eldest son. “What were they thinking, getting caught up in that demonstration against the government?”

Nadia stayed silent. She had no answers for her mother, at least none that she could share. It seemed everyone had their secrets these days, and Jad and Malik had been spending an awful lot of time on the computer and having hushed discussions.

“Thank Allah, Malik had the sense to carry Jad back home on Jad’s motorcycle,” mumbled her mother.

Nadia sighed. The events of the last few months, buzzing on the Internet, jostled inside her tired mind. All across the country, government forces and shabiha were slaughtering innocent civilians, cleansing Sunni Muslims from Alawite areas. In retaliation, Sunnis were butchering Alawites. Despite the bloodshed in Deraa and other cities, the situation in Aleppo had remained mostly calm, punctuated by sporadic demonstrations. But since February, things had changed. Rebel groups that opposed the Assad regime bombed military and police sites, killing twenty-eight and injuring hundreds of others. Further clashes left large swaths of the countryside under rebel control, while news flooded in of more and more senior Syrian army officials defecting to the rebel side. The number and size of protests had grown. It was at one of these demonstrations that Jad had been shot by Syrian military forces.

Eyes and ears open, picking up news and clues, Nadia realized that the war had changed. She’d seen video clips of horrendous battles where rebels from the Free Syrian Army and the al-Tawhid Brigade, with its many subgroups, fought Assad’s forces. Newer clips showed young men with long beards and strange clothes, speaking Arabic in unfamiliar accents, as well as English, French, and Farsi. These were foreigners, flooding into the country, many with extremist religious beliefs, linked with groups such as Al Qaeda and those who called themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, and carried a black flag. As if that weren’t complicated enough, money and arms were flooding in from Europe, America, and rich Gulf Arab states to aid Syrian rebels, who were mainly Sunni Muslims. Meanwhile, Iran and Hezbollah forces from Lebanon, who were Shia, flocked to support Assad, as did Russia, which sent military aid. Christians and other minorities were caught in the middle.

“You should eat something,” said her mother, interrupting Nadia’s thoughts.

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