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.
