ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Syria has been at war for more than a decade, and that conflict between the government of Bashar al-Assad and opposition forces has been at a stalemate for years. All of that changed late last week, when opposition forces launched a surprise offensive, sweeping into the country's second-largest city, Aleppo. Freelance journalist Sara Kassim (ph) used the opportunity to enter the city for the first time since the start of the war in 2011. She staunchly opposes the Assad regime, and she is here to tell us about what she has been seeing in Aleppo. Thank you for joining us.
SARA KASSIM: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about the scene when you arrived in the city a couple days ago. What were the scenes?
KASSIM: Yes. Once I entered, I've seen people walking in the streets as normal, without any scenes of war or without any scenes of blood, without any scenes of violence. They are buying bread, buying in the shops, in the markets, buying vegetables as they are doing their routine - their daily routine. Some people were just walking in the streets. They seemed, to me, very happy, so I asked and interviewed some of them. They were returning back home - some displaced people - they came to Aleppo from the northwest of Syria. They visited Aleppo after being under the control of the military operations. They could manage to go to Aleppo and to go and to look for their houses because they are displaced for more than maybe six years, and now they are...
SHAPIRO: Oh, wow.
KASSIM: ...Able - yes - to go there.
SHAPIRO: You know, when you describe people who are buying bread or vegetables at the market, like a normal day, even as it's just been this massive offensive by the rebels and counterstrikes by the Assad regime and Russia - are people going about their daily lives because they're so desensitized to war? Or - explain how they can just do their regular errands in the midst of this conflict.
KASSIM: I was shocked, to be honest. In the first moment, I was shocked. So how come - how those people are living normally? What I've witnessed in Aleppo city - people were kind of shocked, not knowing what's happening. I've asked so many people, how come that you are in the streets? You're not afraid from the attacks? They said, OK, we have to live. We have to buy bread. We have to buy vegetables.
But also, they are not following so much the news to know that Assad forces are so much withdrawing from the city, and it's totally out of their control. Maybe they are not well aware of what happened till this moment. And in the meantime, I've seen people who are very happy. They have been in Aleppo. They've never left Aleppo, and they are very happy because the opposition entered the city. They said that they suffered a lot because the economic situation was dire there.
SHAPIRO: When you talk to bakers or students or taxi drivers, what do they tell you they want right now? What is most important to them in their lives?
KASSIM: Electricity, services - they want the economic situation to be different. They want to live. And some of them, even - I've met men. They are around 46 or 47 years old. So they've asked us whether maybe the opposition will take them to service or to the Army because we know that the (inaudible) regime - still, to this moment, they take to service men who even are above 40. So they told us that they are always afraid. They stay at home. They could not walk in the streets normally in the city because they have wives and children to take care of.
SHAPIRO: You described people returning home to Aleppo who had been displaced many years ago. Did you see any of them come back to their house for the first time in years? I'm wondering what that experience must have been like for them.
KASSIM: Yes. It was a kind of - not able to explain it because it was unbelievable because they've never thought that there will come a day that they will visit their house once again. They lost hope. They lost hope in the past because they knew how much it is difficult to return back home. They have - they don't have the courage to go to the areas under the control of the Assad regime forces. And in the meantime, nothing is changing on the political situation on a large scale.
SHAPIRO: The war has caused so much destruction and death. After years of stalemate, do you believe this resumption of fighting can actually lead to a positive outcome and not just more cycles of killing?
KASSIM: I really hope so. I really hope so because I've seen, till this moment, so many people - hundreds of people - happy to return back home. They are happy to return back to their villages. We have tens of villages in the countryside of Aleppo and Aleppo city. Thousands of people - really, hundreds of thousands of people will return back home. So the situation will be so much different for those people, especially people who are living in the camps in the northwest of Syria. We know that the NGOs cannot offer the people who are displaced in the camps what they need.
SHAPIRO: Sara Kassim is a Syrian journalist speaking with us from the city of Aleppo. Thank you so much.
KASSIM: Thank you so much. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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