DAY 368 - MARCH 18, 2012
Standing quietly, your back straight and your chest out, you watch as the man in front of you takes out a crumpled tissue from the pocket of his thobe and cleans the sand from each of his nostrils. While doing this he says that Sheik Mukhtar has already alerted him that you were coming. He then yells to one of the teenagers unloading the honey-brown crates from the truck and you can see the stenciled black triangle on the front. It's the mark of Gaddafi. The boy and two other movers take 12 boxes--four of them with RPG-7s and grenade ammunition, the rest filled with brand new AK-12s--and load them onto the Toyota pickup where Jalal covers the crates with a thick black tarp. As you thank the man he tells you his name is Hamid and that Sheikh Mukhtar looks forward to working with Al Nusra in the coming months. You tell him that Jabhat Al Nusra and Liwa Al Tawhid will make a unit capable of toppling Assad's forces once and for all. Fervently, inshallah, he agrees and when you drive away the only thing on your mind is the matter of the coming insurrection in your city and how there must first be war to eventually make peace.