WAR & CONFLICT
Syria: The Last Assignment
Cameraman Yasser al-Jumaili's unseen footage takes us into the lives of Syrian rebels – but he pays the ultimate price.
Special series | 06 Dec 2014 15:16 GMT | War & Conflict, Syria, Syrian crisis, Journalism, Free Syrian Army
Engagement: 7216
This film tells us a story we were not supposed to hear. In it, we see images we were not supposed to see.
When people are watching TV it doesn't really occur to them how it is that those images got there; but you know and I know and everyone who works in places like that [knows] it's people like Yasser, a person with a family, producing those images.
Jane Arraf, Al Jazeera correspondent
On November 20, 2013, Iraqi freelance cameraman Yasser Faisal al-Jumaili crossed the Turkish border into Syria with his trusted Syrian fixer Jomah Alqasem.
The Syrian war had been raging for two-and-a-half years and now saw the various rebel groups splitting one from another, mostly around ideological differences.
The assignment was to access the groups and build a picture of who these men were, away from rhetoric, both on and off duty on the frontlines.
For 13 days in Syria, the two reporters filmed the men behind the frontlines: fighters with the Free Syrian Army, Al-Tawhid Brigade, Al-Nusra Front, Ahrar Al-Sham, and even ISIL.
Now, in this film, only Jomah lives to tell the tale of their last assignment together. His account of their journey vividly portrays the fragility of being embedded in a fast-changing war environment.
Through his story we discover the fascinating highs and lows of Yasser's final assignment. What makes this access extremely rare is Yasser's knack of getting these terrifying groups to let us into their casual, off-duty lives.
Perhaps too close.
On December 4, 2013, as they tried to leave Syria by road, their car was stopped and Yasser was shot multiple times. His killers remain unknown.
In this Al Jazeera exclusive, we discover Yasser - the journalist and the man - from moving accounts of those who knew him best professionally, including Al Jazeera's own correspondents Omar al-Saleh, Jane Arraf and Imran Khan.
But Yasser's unique footage, and own mobile phone diary, later smuggled out of Syria by friends and colleagues, stands here as the greatest testament.
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