Syria: al Qaeda’s New Home - Trailer
Three years ago, an uprising against the Assad regime turned into what looked like a straightforward civil war between Syrian government forces and rebels. However, over time, what had started as a largely secular opposition movement began to take on more of a radical Islamist tone, with two al Qaeda offshoots—the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra—becoming the dominant forces on the ground across the rebel-held North.
ISIS’s policy of kidnapping journalists has made it almost impossible to report from within Syria. But one VICE filmmaker managed to secure unprecedented access to both al Qaeda factions battling Syria’s government forces, creating this remarkable portrait of the foreign volunteers and local Syrians willing to fight and die to establish a new caliphate on Europe’s doorstep.
