By Hadi Abdullah
هادي العبدالله

Tarad and I were covering the battles for the media in those days. The revolutionaries started trying to rid the area of the regime’s suffocating grip by taking control first of the checkpoints that separated different areas of the city, then of those that kept the city shut off from its countryside, which required an enormous military effort. Despite the magnitude of the task, the revolutionaries did it. Then it was the villages’ turn. … The civilians started preparing for the big day, while revolutionaries planned the liberation. They headed north like one big human river, “God be on our side” was their weapon.