Crossing the Red Line
BEFORE THE WAR, Mohammed Abdullah—or Artino, as people called him—worked for Apple in Damascus, studied English, and listened to heavy metal. He was an Alawite but hated being a member of the ruling clique, knowing he could get what he wanted if he just leaned into his accent. But his privilege became an asset when he joined the opposition in 2011: His identity helped him get through government checkpoints to smuggle medicine, blood, and money to besieged cities.
It also helped when he got arrested. In jail, he was beaten and spit upon, but they didn’t curse his family, burn him with cigarettes, or electrocute him. His captors knew he had personal connections. When his dad, a former high-ranking intelligence officer, got him out after just a week, Artino signed a paper promising to stop his opposition activity. His father scolded him for associating with a bunch of violent drug addicts.
But Artino continued his activism. When relatives saw him on television at the funeral of an opposition activist, his brother, an officer in the Syrian army’s feared 4TH Division, sent him a message threatening to kill him. Shortly afterward, the secret police came to Artino’s workplace, but he pretended to be someone else and got away. Another day, he was approached by a man who said he was an intelligence agent assigned to monitor Artino’s movements, but since he was friends with Artino’s cousin, he offered to report nothing if Artino agreed to lie low.
Artino went to his aunt and uncle’s summer home in Ghouta, a semirural area outside the capital where the government had less control. At night, FSA fighters would attack military checkpoints there, blending back into civilian life during the day. In August 2012, Artino heard shouting and gunfire outside. When he opened the door, he saw soldiers from what looked like the Republican Guard, a division that protects President Assad, searching for activists and rebels, shooting anyone who ran. Artino began burying his laptop outside when he wasn’t using it. He planned to disguise himself in a burqa if the military suddenly showed up.
As things got dicier, Artino fled to Lebanon for a couple of months, but he decided it was safe to return after the rebels started to take over towns in Ghouta. By the time he got back, things had changed. It felt like “living in a free country without dictatorship, without ,” Assad’s feared secret police.
