DAY 876 - AUGUST 1, 2013
Buoyed by the ISIS takeover in many parts of Eastern Syria, Al Qaeda members perform a daring prison break at Abu Ghraib, the famed US jailhouse used during the American occupation in Iraq. Consequently, Al Qaeda frees more than 500 high-ranking terrorists into the Iraqi desert and Israel's Director of Military Intelligence warns that Syria is becoming a hotbed for global jihadists. Britain and France confirm that Sarin gas was used in Syria during the spring. In response, UN weapons inspectors say they will visits three locations where chemical weapons were allegedly deployed. Iran, one of Assad's strongest allies, extends a $3.6 billion credit line to Syria while Russia pushes forward with arms shipments to the regime, despite intense international pressure to break ties with the Syrian government. Furthermore Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, promises to propel Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's forces to victory. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon says that the situation in Syria has now claimed over 100,000 lives.
You've spent the last three months in Tadmor. They have not tortured you but you can hear the screams of an American journalist who entered the prison about a month ago and who sleeps on the other side of the wall. Aasfa could not take it. Over the course of the last month she has been slowly filing down the small window with another woman. She continues to starve herself until she knows she can fit through the opening, but on the day of her escape, a dog on the other end of the wall spots her, and then a regime soldier follows, opening fire before she can even fully make it out into the daylight. Her body jolts when it is hit and she falls back into the cell, her head half of what it used to be.