Al-Qaeda soldier
There is a great new documentary about life in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province that you should definitely watch start-to-finish.

Produced by the pan-Arab Akhbar al-Aan TV (financed by UAE) much of it was filmed secretly as reporters are regularly kidnapped in Idlib, or else pressured to tow the rebel line.

This makes it one of rare uncensored reports from rebel-held Syria.


One of the most interesting parts is where the incognito reporters counted how many checkpoints on the main roads are manned by which groups.


They discovered that out of the total 39 checkpoints on the three main roads 21 belonged to Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) and 6 more to its close allies.

The only other major player is the al-Qaeda-like Ahrar al-Sham with 10 checkpoints.

There were only 2 checkpoints manned by FSA outfits.