I recently traveled the only way out of west Aleppo, via the military route through Khanaser. It was quite an informative and at times tense trip that I’ll admit had me filled with trepidation in the lead-up. The Khanaser road is a makeshift track that winds across the Aleppo countryside down to Salamiyeh, in Hama, and connects the north of the country to the interior and the coast. It is also the only lifeline to the regime-controlled western part of the city and was recaptured by regime forces in a hard-fought campaign last summer.

The route itself is now heavily fortified, with army checkpoints every kilometer or so and foreboding sentinels of tanks and cannons strategically placed on nearby hills, their barrels fixed on intersections and weak points. The route's capture by regime forces caused disarray and recrimination among the rebel forces, as they traded accusations of treachery and factionalism, prompting Col. Abdel Jabbar al-Akidi, head of the rebel military council in Aleppo, to resign his post in disgust. I wanted to get to the rebel-controlled Bab al-Hawa crossing into Turkey, a 6.5-hour journey along a loop of roughly 500 kilometers (311 miles) because of road closures. Before the war, driving directly to the crossing would have barely taken 45 minutes. 

My trip would be dangerous in more ways than one. Aside from the possibility of being caught in crossfire, there was a real chance of being abducted or worse after crossing into the largely lawless rebel areas, of being arrested and “disappeared” for whatever reason from a suspicious regime checkpoint. This is why I chose a carefully vetted driver, an experienced veteran of the dangerous road we were about to embark upon and who had safely transported many of my relatives.

The driver, Ahmed, chose to use his private car and, to my surprise, brought along his wife, clad in full Islamic dress — a black head scarf and a thick, body-covering black abaya. He explained his logic to me: “We just look like a normal family traveling. No one should stop us or bother us along the way.” To my amazement, it worked like a charm. Only at one of the several dozen regime checkpoints were we stopped and asked to show IDs, and that was past Hama. None of the few rebel ones stopped us at all.