How to defeat ISIS and lose your semi-autonomy in a handful of simple steps
T
hese days, getting hold of contacts in northeastern Syria is never easy. Cell service is unreliable, Internet drops without warning, and officials from the Kurdish administration are too overwhelmed to talk. Mohammed Q., a local journalist I’ve gotten to know from the city of Hasakah in Syrian Kurdistan, is one of the few who picks up.
About a minute into the call, the sound cuts through the line; a low, heavy roar that needs no translation. A jet passes overhead, clear enough for me to hear from the other end. Hasakah sits beside a US military base, one of America’s last footholds in northeastern Syria, and the jets overhead are part of that presence, keeping a close eye over ISIS detention sites.
“The jets are flying around the al-Sina’a Prison,” he says. “Just to make sure no one escapes.”
As if life in Syrian Kurdistan wasn’t stressful enough already.
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