 Welcome everybody, and thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Hind Kabawat, and I'm the Senior Program Officer for Syria here at USIP. As you know, USIP has been working for the Syrian Revolution from the beginning. And today we are working with leaders inside and outside Syria to empower them to be leaders in their community. And more and more, I hope we can see more activities like this. This meetings reinforce our support for the Syrian society, which is our main mandate. And of course, I'm rushing because there is no time to take a time to breathe, but today we are pleased to welcome you. To welcome the members of the Syrian Civil Defense or the White Helmet. We have some 600 volunteers known as a White Helmet, and they are organized volunteers who act as rescue workers in the areas like Aleppo and Idlib. They are unarmed and impartial. They operate on principles of solidarity and humanity. And this has laid out in the Geneva Convention. In the last six months, they have received more than 2,500 lives, so they deserve everything. Thank you. Because the barrel bombs fall, these courageous men, and also have lots of women, saved lives with their bare hands. As a quick administrative matter, I just want to ask you, if you want to Twitter, please do it hashtags USIP Syria or hashtags with Syria. I just want to thank the Syria campaign, our co-sponsor for this event, to facilitate this visit and making it happening. Really thank you very much. And thank you for taking, for all of you to take this afternoon to spend with us. To begin our conversation, I'd like to ask Anna Nolan, director of the Syria campaign, to offer a few welcome remarks. Anna is a Belfast-born campaigner with deep expertise working on a range of justice issues. Prior to joining Purpose, the organization was incubated the Syria campaign and a work on campaign innovation at Oxfam, it's in Great Britain. Prior to that, she was the campaign manager for the Robin Hood Tax campaign. She holds degrees from Glasgow School of Art and Reading University. Anna, please. Thank you. Thank you. So I just wanted to thank USIP, first of all, for hosting us today. They pulled the gallery event on incredibly short notice, so we really appreciate the hard work that your organization has put into this. The Syria campaign was found in April of this year, and the objective and mission of the Syria campaign is to bring the voices of the Syrian Revolution, the voices that want freedom, that want democracy, that want peace to an international audience, primarily in Europe and the United States. As part of this work, we've launched a campaign called the White Helmets. The White Helmets is a campaign that aims to bring the incredible work that the Syrian Civil Defence do to a wider audience and help facilitate their efforts to secure more funding for that work, but crucially to end the attacks that they have to respond to. These guys can only end the suffering, and it's up to us in the international community to drive, to end it, not just ease the suffering. So we're so privileged to have had the guys in town for the last 10 days, and to be able to share their work with you today. Thank you, Anne. To begin today's event, we will first hear from Dr. Samuel Attar of the Syrian American Medical Society. Before I introduce him, I just want to thank him because he's the cause of my first visit to Killis because of Sam's, they took me under their wings and taken me. So thank you, Samuel, in advance for this. So Dr. Attar is an orthopedic surgeon at Northwestern University, Fimberg School of Medicine. Dr. Attar is an active member of the Syrian American Medical Society called SAMS, participating in medical missions and advocacy initiatives. He has volunteered in Field Hospital in Aleppo with SAMS in August 2013. And also in April 2014. Most recently, he worked at the Syrian Jordanian border in July 2014. With Metsens en Frontierre. Dr. Attar, please. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Skips to the end, sorry. I'm Sam Attar. I'm an orthopedic surgeon at Northwestern University, but I've also volunteered with the Syrian American Medical Society. I just want to say thanks to the USIP and also the Syria campaign and also the civil defenders. It's an honor to be in their presence today, an honor to be a part of this program. I'll speak briefly. I just want to lend some perspective, give some insight into what life is like on the ground. And I can really only speak to what I witnessed as a surgeon in Field Hospitals in Syria. I volunteered in August 2013 and in April of 2014. I took this picture on the way in. The population stacks buses and cars on top of each other because these buses serve as shields from sniper fire. So snipers in Aleppo unfortunately shoot everything. They shoot at children. They shoot at elderly. They shoot at animals. Again, I worked with the Syrian American Medical Society who got me in touch with the Aleppo City Medical Council, who's a group of local medical professionals in Aleppo with no political or military affiliation. On the way there, I pretty much took a flight to Gaziantep. I got picked up at the airport, got driven to the border, passed the refugee camps, and I got dropped off at the border. Once you pass that line, you're kind of on your own. You cry for help. There's not much there to help you out, except these guys, if you are getting in trouble. On the way in, I took pictures of the destruction. Nothing's really been spared. Homes, schools, hospitals, bakeries, bread lines, all have been attacked and destroyed. A lot of buildings have been gutted. You'll find roofs pancaked on top of roofs. And the hard part is imagining the people that were living there. These were civilians who were living there, families and mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. This was a mosque that was destroyed. This is the Dar al-Shafat Hospital, which was destroyed in November of 2012, or received some media attention. This is where we slept. We all slept on the floor. We all lived in our scrubs. I only did this for two weeks, but doctors and nurses and volunteers in Syria have been doing this for two years. So we're only short, two-week volunteer stints for me. I just get it in packets. These guys have been living this life nonstop for the past couple of years. In August, we lived here. But unfortunately, the hospital I worked at got hit by a barrel bomb. So the top floor was destroyed, so everything got moved to the basement. So when I came back, we were all living in the basement. I was told not to go to the roof because occasionally shots would get fired at the rooftop. So nobody was allowed on the roof. And I tried to stay away from windows because bombs would land right outside the hospital, sometimes a few meters away. And shrapnel would blast into the windows. This was my colleague. He is an orthopedic surgeon. I can't show his face because even health care professionals in Syria are targeted just for helping the quote unquote other side, whatever that side tends to be. He had not yet seen his family. He's an orthopedic surgeon. He's my age. But he hadn't seen his family in nine months. He had a wife and three daughters who he sent to live in Lebanon when the fighting broke out. He stayed behind to help out. And the one thing he looked forward to every night was looking at photos of his three kids that his wife would text him. That was his one thing he did every night. In the emergency room, people ask me what I saw. So I have a lot of graphic pictures. We're not going to show them. But I saw horrifying things, brutal things. It's hard to describe them. This is just one example. A school was hit when I was there in August. And this child was with his best friend at the time when it was hit. The last thing he remembers was seeing his best friend explode in front of him. And we were pulling out bone fragments here from his back. And I wasn't sure where they were coming from, because they weren't his bones. He didn't have any fractures. And after talking to him, he realized they were the bone fragments of other people around him that were hit. And this is the last thing he remembers before his best friend disintegrate. This was a child who I treated. He lost both of his legs above the knee, in addition to most of his family when a missile struck his home. The day before I left Aleppo, he asked me to bring back prosthetic legs, because they didn't have any prosthets or prosthetics in Aleppo. And from his understanding, they're like a pair of sneakers. You put them on, and you run around, and you're back to normal. We treated a lot of sniper injuries. Again, I said snipers shoot everyone. So I treated head injuries. Not just me. We treated head injuries. We treated arm injuries, leg injuries, abdominal injuries. This is a caliber bullet in a pediatric knee. This is a high caliber bullet in a femur of a 17-year-old that was crossing the street, trying to get some food for his family. Got shot in the femur. We were able to fix it with these nails that we brought in on our backpacks. This is a femoral nail, which you would use to treat anything here in the States if anybody was in a car accident or a gunshot here. The operating rooms are very spartan. There's not really that much to work with, but it's amazing what you can do with very little. When barrel bombs drop, those that survive end up with shrapnel in their extremities. So this is an x-ray of a pediatric forearm, of a baby forearm. So all of that white stuff outside of the bone, you see that's all shrapnel that's projected into the soft tissues. It's hard to get all of that out. It's hard to clean all of that out. This is a happy story. This is a child that was caught in an airstrike, and he was brought into the emergency room unresponsive. He was rescued, brought into the emergency room unresponsive, did not have a pulse. His thigh was blown open. He did not have a femoral artery. That was blown open. And his femur was fractured. But everyone worked together. Everyone was part of a team. The blood vessel was found. It was clamped. His bone was fixed with an external fixator. And then a vascular surgeon took a superficial vein from his other leg and created a new artery. And then that night he woke up. He told us his name. We found out who he was. We were able to call his dad. So that was a win, amidst all of that. One thing I noticed, too, is that everyone pointed to the sky. Everyone pointed to the sky because there was a palpable sense of dread. Anytime you saw these dots in the sky, these are helicopters. That's what they look like. These are all my pictures. Then you'd see dots drop from them. And you'd hope you weren't in the pathway of their destruction. This is what a lipo looks like as of April 2014. I never used to look like this. But these are civilian areas which have been gutted open. Most of it was a ghost town when I was there in April 2014 because people fled. This was a hospital that was destroyed the day after I arrived. The field hospitals are codenamed in Syria. So only the local population knows where they're located. But it was bombed the day after I arrived. I managed to make it over there a week later and just take some pictures of what was going on. Our emergency room was always overwhelmed. We were always working 12 to 24 hours a day, rarely slept. The lucky ones ended up just needing oxygen when they were pulled from the rubble. Some ended up with open fractures. This is an arm that was broken after a barrel bomb hit. And these kids, these three kids were at school when a barrel bomb hit them. I like this picture because even though they're injured, even though they have very bad injuries, this child here, you can't see him. He's just hanging out there calmly. But if I showed you a picture of his arm and his forearm and his hand, you'd see that it was completely open, completely blasted open with exposed muscle and nerves. His hand was saved. But once it eventually heals, it's going to be scarred for life and likely will disable him for life. And then lastly, there's no morgue. So when you work in these field hospitals, sometimes after a barrel bomb attack, there are so many people flooding through the hospital door, there's no place else to put them except on the same bed. If two or three people on the same bed, when you run out of room on the beds, you put them on the floor. When you ran out of operating rooms, there are only three operating rooms. And you have eight people that need operations. You end up doing operations in the hallway on stretchers or in the emergency room. This is a man who lost his home to a barrel bomb. And he also lost his wife. And he was so distraught over what had happened that he didn't want to leave his wife's side until she was taken to be buried. Speaking of targeting of health care personnel, the hospital that I worked at was hit on February 7, 2014 incapacitated to the point where they had to go down from three to two operating rooms. This is what one of them looked like after the fact. And then in June 2014, it was bombarded to the point where now it's incapacitated. So people ask me, what I witnessed, what I saw, that's pretty much what I witnessed. And when I saw them, people ask me, well, who are the good guys? Well, I can at least tell you I met a lot of good people. I met a lot of good people who I trusted. These are doctors from the Aleppo City Medical Council. Many of these doctors had a lot of money, and they could have left, but they chose to stay, sleep on the floor and take care of people. They all worked together. They all worked as a team. I'm still amazed that a child like this could have gone through the injuries that he has and still is able to smile like that. And I think it speaks volumes to the resilience not of just children, but also the Syrian people. This is a man who saw an elderly lady get shot by a sniper, and he went to save her life. He saved her life in the process. He got shot, but he saved her life. And he only ended up with a minor arm wound. And then lastly, I want to finish off with these guys. I talked about some good people. You guys might recognize some of your friends. The hospital I worked at was in Aleppo. And in April, one day, the White Helmets showed up to our hospital, because when they weren't busy saving lives, they decided to show up and donate blood. And so they all came together to donate blood. These two are getting a little bit woozy, as you can see. That's when you give them sugar and put a wet towel on their forehead, get their legs up above their head. This guy here was just getting started. That's why I look so happy. So that was it. I crossed the border, and you're back home. But again, there are a lot of bad things happening in Syria, but there are a lot of good things happening, too. There are good people who are trying to make a difference. They really are heroes. They don't plan on leaving. They're doing the best they can. And they need all the help they can get. And there are three of them here today with us. So thank you very much for your time, and for letting me talk to you about Syria. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Samir, for reminding us all that there is lots of good people. And hope we know that all this destruction is the result of what the Assad regime is doing. So now I'd like to introduce our panelists, who are all members of the Syrian civil defense team, who I like really to give them a very warm welcome to be here with us. So our first panelist is Ra'id Saleh, who has served at the head of the Syrian civil defense in Idlib for the past year. Before the Syrian Revolution, Ra'id was a businessman who sold electrical equipment. Ra'id was appointed by the local and regional authorities at the head of civil defense in the western liberated areas, which mean he manages 360 members at 17 stations. In August alone, his team responded to over 70 bombings and saved 177 lives. And also our second panelist is Khalid Harrah, who is featured in the video. We're about to show you later. And he's a member of the Syrian civil defense team in Aleppo City. Just to let you know that I witnessed your work in Aleppo in Ramadan in 2013, and I'm so honored today to be here, because I know how much you did to the Syrian people. So before the revolution, he was a painter and decorator. And also he joined the Syrian civil defense volunteer nine months ago. So welcome. Third, we have Farouk Habib. He's the program manager from the Syrian civil defense. He was closely with Ra'id and Khalid and their team. Originally from Homs, my favorite city, because my grandmother from Homs. So you're going to get a very special treatment. He was one of the early leaders of the revolution there, and he will be translating for Khalid and Ra'id today. So to provide you also with some context about the work of the Syrian civil defense, we have a short video. We're going to show you the short videos that highlight some of their great work. So thank you. This is Ra'id. His voice became very loud. We listened to his voice, and it was very difficult. After we arrived here, the work became very sad. This is the age of two weeks, or more, at any moment, he will dry up or die. The time has come. Of course, this is not possible. It's very sad. This is a spirit. You can do it in a very dangerous way. This is the age of two weeks. He will dry up or die, or three or four times a week. He will have the money, and this child will die, and he will dry up and die. I told him to cut, cut, cut. I'm going to show the other movie. That's it. This is so inspiring. Thank you. We might have this little baby one day, a president of Syria. Thanks to you, of course. Khalid, would you like to tell us a little bit more about your experience and your work to the highlight of this video? If you can tell us more about this. Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you, too. I'm a man defending the city of Aleppo. For a while, I was in the city of Aleppo to a specific place. I didn't have a long period of time. I was in the city of Aleppo in the morning. In the morning, from 6.30 to 8 in the morning. This was a period before the city of Aleppo. For a while, I was defending the city of Aleppo. Our city of Aleppo. This is the boy you saw in the video. He was our center general. Khalid speaks about the intensive sharing on Aleppo city and all the civilian neighborhoods in that area. They used to expect the regime's air strikes every morning between 6.30 to 8.30. The regime even started targeting systematically the centers of the civilian defendants themselves. This baby, who you see in the video, was targeted to him and his family in a civilian building very close to the civil defense center in Aleppo. Today, our center general is in the center of Aleppo. One of the centers of Aleppo is in the center of Aleppo. This is the boy you saw in the video. That Tuesday, I remember the regime air strikes targeted our neighborhood with five barrel bombs. One of them targeted our center and the other one targeted the civilian building where the family of that baby was. We went there trying to help the civilians who were under rubble and the locals in that area told us that there were three families living in that building and actually they were families of three brothers. We respect them and we respect them and we respect them and we respect them and we respect them and we respect them we rescued the first family the second family and we were searching to find the third family. It took almost seven hours from us to rescue the three families, and when we were collecting our equipment, trying to go back to our center, a mother came crying and asking for our help to go back and look for her two children. She has a daughter of Shukran Amin bin Ed, a year and a half, and a baby of 10 days old. We went back and it was very difficult for us. It was a miracle to hear the voice of that baby. And in the beginning we thought that it's the voice of the one and a half year old baby, not this one. We didn't have advanced equipment, we didn't have search cameras or sound sensors to detect where the people are under rubble, so we used very light and basic materials. It took from us 16 hours, and in the last hour we were able to know where the child was, and we opened a hole in the wall to pull it. This story is one of thousands of stories in Aleppo, and in this story we were able to rescue that baby, but his sister, the child of one year and a half, we found her dead. During those 16 hours we were not able to keep working for the whole period because the air strikes continued and the same airplanes were coming again, so we worked for an hour or two hours, then we received a warning that there will be another air strike, we escaped and we come back again. Khalid had said that there are a lot of impressive stories which were not filmed, and we are a lot of so many impressive stories which were not filmed, this is just one example, and he said that if they have proper equipment they will be able to rescue more people. Can you tell us more about the serious civil defence, how does it work, how does it operate in a daily basis, more details about the operation? Just referring to the introduction, Raed said that he was not appointed by the local authorities actually, he worked on the ground with his colleagues of volunteers, established the first centre and gradually they expanded their work and they built their organisation, they are not assigned by anyone. Of course they co-ordinated with the elected authorities in the liberated areas. We came out of the protests in the Syrian revolution in 2011, and then we went to Turkey, and our efforts in the protests, we worked in the protests for many years, and then with the liberation of small areas from the regime's hands, we returned to Syria in the beginning of 2012, and we started working in the Eghasi field, there were a lot of protests, we helped people, we established the protests in Turkey. We have been working now for a year and four months, actually, we started our activities in helping our people from the beginning in 2011 when we participated in the revolution and the peaceful demonstrations, then we escaped when the army invaded our areas, we escaped to Turkey, we lived in the camps and we started working on relief projects in the camps of refugees, then we went back to Syria to the liberated areas when the FSA liberated some areas in the north, and we started providing assistance for the people there. The shelling targeted everything in Syria at that time until now, and Ra'id and his colleagues were trying to rescue people after the airstrikes, but they discovered then that sometimes they cause damages because they are not well trained to do this work. Then they started communicating with other donors and organizations trying to get assistance to know how to do this work. We had 136 people working in the civil defense system, they are in the same management, the district has 20 employees, each company has 25 employees. We expanded our work. Gradually, we got training and we started opening center after center in Jussu Shuo, Ma'aret, Naaman, Bin Nish and other areas. And now we have an organization joining 356 volunteers in Idlib. In 17 centers, there are main centers and sub-centers, but all of them work under the umbrella of one day, the director. Of course, the number is different between 15 or 20 or 25 people. Today, we have three centers of training in Syria, one in Aleppo and two in Idlib. Now, we are currently doing training in new centers such as Lada'i and Hama. And today, thank God, after a year and four months, we have 1,050 people working in the city. 17 centers in Aleppo, 17 centers in Idlib. There are nine centers, they were opened in Hama, six centers in Lada'i. God willing, we will develop until we cover all the Syrian lands. I had explained how they got training first outside of Syria in Turkey. Then they started training others inside Syria. And now they have three training centers inside, two in Idlib Governorate and one in Aleppo Governorate. They are proud that now they have almost 1,050 volunteers working for the seven defense, of course, the Syrian Governorates in Syria. They have 17 centers in Idlib, 17 in Aleppo, nine in Hama and six in Latakia countryside. The daily average of air strikes on Idlib Governorate is 15 air strikes per day. The daily average of air strikes on Idlib Governorate is 15 air strikes per day. And sometimes this number increases, exceeds 100 air strikes per day on Idlib alone, especially when the regime loses in battles anywhere in Syria. It punishes civilians in other areas. And 23 days ago, in one day, the regime executed 125 air strikes. We have plans for the future. For example, we are working to get accreditation from the UN for the civil defense organization as a humanitarian organization working to help Syrians. We want to form special search and rescue teams from our Syrian civil defenders and send them to work to help people in other countries. And we are sure after the achievements we have achieved during the past a year and four months we will not stop or go back. We will continue and advance. Until 23rd of August, we have rescued 2,514 civilians from undervalued. Thank you. Thank you, Harit. This is so inspiring. I like when we talk about hope and about our goals, about the future. Because this is all about the Syrian revolution. Like one of the activists told me, we started as a revolution of dignity and freedom, but the Syrian regime turned into war and destruction like what you witness now in Aleppo. I like now to turn the question to you, my dear audience. We need some good questions. All of your questions are good, but we need to have some debate. We have some times we can have discussions. So please. We have the microphones here. Yes, please. If you would like to introduce yourself and if you have, if you want to address your question to somebody special or to all of them, that's fine too. Thank you. My name is Carrie Lajanes and I have a question about how the people that are working over there doing the rescue work take care of themselves from a psycho-emotional standpoint. This is very difficult work and I know a lot of people are lost to the cause because of that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Khaled said that it's our humanitarian duty to try to help our people. At the end, we work in our neighborhoods, in our areas. Those casualties are actually our families, our relatives and our neighbors. And we are committed to work and rescue them. Khaled added that we can't lose hope. We feel all is optimistic and we continue. We remember, he gave an example. He remembers a long time ago when they established the first center, there was an air strike on a bazaar in Darkoosh and there were so many civilians killed at that moment. At that time, when he and his colleagues responded to that attack and they're trying to rescue people, they couldn't rescue anyone and they were just collecting corpse of dead bodies. At that time, they felt they were helpless. But then, when they got training and when they had good success stories, now that they remember those times and it's an incentive for them to continue because now they believe that they can do something and they have to continue. Hi, I'm Akbar Shahid Ahmed from the Huffington Post and thank you so much for being here. My question is on the flow of medical supplies. So this is really for all of you. How does the flow of supplies work for hospitals, for groups like the Civil Defence? And with that, how do you maintain the flow of supplies for your purposes when there are so many other groups that might want to take them for their own purposes? So that can mean any of the militias, any of the people fighting on the ground. How do you keep your supplies safe from that? I can only speak to my personal experience. Many of the supplies I brought in, I just brought in in my backpack. Many of the physicians with SAMs, a lot of the stuff they bring in, they just bring in undoubled bags and backpacks that they walk across the border. And a lot of the supplies just get delivered to local field hospitals by coordinating with local volunteers on the ground. I can't speak much beyond that. I can answer a little bit because we had a suitcase initiative. For the last two years we've been a personal initiative. We take suitcases of medicine. When we go to South Turkey or to Jordan, we take with us medicine. And we already had 55 suitcases and it's all personal initiative from American and Canadian friends. Yes, please. In principle we do humanitarian work. We are not affiliated to any political activities. And we are there to help people. So generally we are welcomed almost by everybody. And those armed groups at the end, they are sons of this land. They are Syrians. And most of them are cooperative. They facilitate our work and they don't cause any problems for us. It's said that because of their focus on the humanitarian work, they are allowed even to go and work in very dangerous places like the places which are under control of extremist groups. Because they know that those humanitarian activists work just to help people. Thank you. First and later, Mohammad. Yes, Tia. Hi, everyone. I'm Tia Rojda. I'm Syrian lawyer. I have arrived in the United States seven months ago. I knew Raed and his guys and the local council in Idlib. They actually did a great job with Mr. Abbas Ameen. He's the governor of the Idlib council. And my question, I have actually two questions. The first one for Raed and his guys. I will ask by Arabic. Maybe Abbas Ameen can translate it. Just a second. Thank you. This is the first question. Do you want to open any channel to build medical work in the form of institutions with the Syrian coalition and the Syrian National Council? Yes, thank you. Tia asked briefly two questions, first question to Raed. He asked Raed about the American airstrike on Kaffir Darian in Idlib countryside a few days ago, which caused civilian casualties including three children. And the other question to Sam's organization if it has been able to build institutional structures in coordination with the bodies of the Syrian opposition like the National Coalition and the Indian Council. There were three American strikes on Idlib governorate. Two airstrikes targeted al-Nusra camps and the group of Khurasan. And the third airstrike was on the village of Kaffir Darian and there were civilian victims. 13 civilian were killed. And that was a big mistake. And in principle it was a big mistake to target anything in Idlib governorate because everybody knows that there is no ISIS in Idlib. It's not my work to intervene in these issues and call for an intervention or not our help is to rescue people. In principle the people were angry against targeting civilian buildings in Idlib but actually all of them were supporting the airstrikes against ISIS. The targets were well selected because Idlib governorate itself suffered a lot because of ISIS and the FSA in Idlib was the start of the fight against ISIS before anyone else and people of Idlib believe that they lost so many FSA leaders killed by ISIS maybe more than those who were killed by the regime itself. I don't know the exact answer to the question and the logistics behind it but I can say that the Syrian American Medical Society supports healthcare and local healthcare professionals all throughout Syria so those areas inside government control as well as those areas outside of the government control. Mohammad please you have the microphone. Thank you. Thank you. Mohammad Ghanem the Syrian American Council. It has stated U.S. policy to support civil society initiatives like yours. Have you received U.S. assistance in your meetings here where you promised additional assistance and could you speak a little bit more what kind of equipment you need? The U.S. government has provided several projects on the way to support civil society in Aleppo and we started working with the U.S. for a month. We planned a project with them for 15 days. I think it will be a great opportunity for the U.S. to work with the U.S. and we planned a project with them for 15 days. We provide uniforms, bags, bags and these hand-held equipment. In addition, we have cooperation with one of the support organizations, the S.E.U. and we have a plan for a period of time to enter Syria during this week with a value of $6 million before the U.S. In our meetings here, we promised to provide $4.5 million for other organizations to enter the Syrian civil society. But there is an important point. The U.S. government is supporting the issue of organizations in the difficult times. It said they got some assistance from the U.S. government through Chemonex. They got uniforms and bags and they will receive through the S.E.U. some vehicles and trucks funded by a grant from the U.S. of $6 million. In our meetings during the past few days, we have been promised of receiving $4.5 million in terms of equipment and vehicles for the civil defense. But we informed the officials here that we need also to get funds to cover the operating expenses because those heavy equipment need fuel to run them and need spare parts. And we don't have other sources of income. We are volunteers and we can't cover the operating expenses to use those equipment provided by the U.S. government. My name is Namo Abdul. I'm a journalist with Rudaou News Network. I have a question to all of you. I'd like just to have your personal views about the airstrikes by the United States and its partners. Do you think, I mean, have those airstrikes made the situation more or less dire for the civilians? And also, have they raised hopes among the Syrians as the international community seems to be paying more attention at least maybe to a different enemy now than the enemy that you've been fighting against for over three years? Actually, it did both. It increased the suffering of the civilians at the same time. It gave some hope. People had some hope that if the United States and the coalition started targeting ISIS, they might go further and target the regime later. Or at least stop the airstrikes of the regime in order to prevent it from targeting civilians and blaming the Americans for it. And the suffering of the civilians increased because of the mistakes in targeting some areas like the siles, the grain sines of Manbij. And they targeted also the oil fields. The oil barrel cost us 10,000 Syrian pounds before the airstrikes. Now it cost 45,000 Syrian pounds and it's very difficult to find it. Will the American government compensate us or provide any alternative to get the fuel? And unfortunately there is no clear strategy and vision. And after targeting the grain stores now, we will face a problem because half of the population in the liberated areas get grains from them. So 4 million Syrians, civilians in the northern areas will not be able to get grain and have bread. And we are afraid if the Americans target the other grains in Idlib, we will not be able to find a solution. Maybe there were five or six fighters from ISIS there, but does it work to target that very strategic warehouse? You need to add something? Dr. Attar, what are some of the major shortcomings facing Syria's health infrastructure in responding to this crisis? I'd say everything basic about medicine is a shortcoming. A lot of the doctors have left, a lot of the nurses have left, pretty much every position in the healthcare field has fled, leaving a lot of inexperienced people, volunteers. We don't know much about medicine, but we're doing their best to help out. There are some areas that don't even have basic supplies like antibiotics, anesthesia. A lot of hospitals have been targeted or destroyed, and so a lot of makeshift hospitals have, makeshift hospitals with not very good storage capacity have arisen, so it's really a medical crisis for that reason. Just want to add, from the beginning of the revolution, the Syrian regime targeted the doctors, killing them or asking them to leave or in prison, and there is so many doctors died in prison by torture from the Syrian regime. So it was like a plan to have this situation where we are now. And it's not just war wounded. I share a lot of stories of amputations and disabilities, but those are just the wounded. We're not talking about people that have basic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, leukemia, cancer. If you had those conditions inside Syria and you didn't have access to a hospital or a healthcare clinic, things probably didn't end up well for you for those reasons. Good. Yes. Hi. I have two questions. Can you introduce yourself? My name is Mishalina and I'm a student with WII. And I have two questions for all the panelists. I was wondering, at what age can an individual train and work with the Syrian civil defense and are there female members in the Syrian civil defense? Thank you. Yes. We have females civil defenders working with us in Islam. And the age should be between 20 to 30 years for the new volunteers who want to join the organization. I'm glad that there is one. And for those who defect from the regime, the firefighters who worked for the regime fire department, they are received for us no matter what their age. So, for example, we have someone who is 60 years old. But they have experience and our strategy is to give a place for everyone who defect from the regime and join us. Any other questions? Bassem, please. Bassem from Syria. We need to translate this. It's just like asking Bassem what is the reaction, how these people have been wounded, their feelings, their reaction after this. We have hope in life that there is still something that we can live with. Honestly, we, all over the world, have been patient with the Syrian people for four years. But it is said that the people inside have been suffering from their daily life. Like when they are in the morning in America drinking a cup of coffee and talking about this story. It has become a normal thing. I don't know anything new about our daily life. But the people are patient and they are able to continue their lives. Now you can find the area where you live after half an hour or half an hour, you can find your daily life again. Because it is a civil defense. If you are working for the regime, there is no one to clean the road, it is better to clean the road. When we rescue a person, actually we give him a new life. And this gives us new hope to continue. Maybe the world is surprised how the Syrian people are still able to continue how we survive and how we tolerate all of this. But actually we pull to the whole world that we are committed and we will continue and we will never surrender. And now it is our daily life. Like when you wake up in the morning and take your Nescafe, it is for us we wake up and wait for the airstrike. And when it bonds any place after 30 minutes or one hour, you may see it is normal again and people went back to continue their life. People try to escape in the beginning and many of them left the country and went to the camps. A person will try to live in a camp for a while. But because of the mistreatment, many of them now they prefer to stay under one roof. And they try to escape. They try to escape. They try to escape. They try to escape. They try to escape. And many of them now they prefer to stay under bombing, under shelling inside and not to go outside of sea. So after the revolution, what do you want to do? This is what this time asks. Just a moment. And later, honey. In terms of international organizations, do they exist in Syria? And do they share international organizations and work with you? Thank you. Just a moment. Just a moment. His question is about, is there any international organization working on humanitarian issues? And are there any cooperation with you? Yes? First, regarding the UN organizations, like the WFP, the UNHCR, the UNICEF, until a month ago, we were not able to get anything from them. They worked only on the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNICEF, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, the UNHCR, they worked only on the regime areas, they coordinated with it, and they sent the airs to the regime areas, and most of them were sold there. A month ago, the UN Security Council issued a resolution to permit and authorize the cross-border operations. So now the UN organizations are authorized to channel assistance from the neighboring countries, crossing the opposition, crossing borders. The other part is the other countries' organizations, like the Self-Children or GOL, or... There are many organizations, they are not very well-preserved, they are working in liberated areas and they are providing services to the people who are present in the area. But the non-UN, non-governmental organizations, like Save the Children and other humanitarian organizations, they work in the liberated areas and they provide good services and assistance for the people. There is coordination between them. They coordinate with them, but in their type of activities, the search and rescue and firefighting, there is no other organization working in Syria. Thank you. Yes. Phil Schruyfer, retired international health care worker. Just to pin it down to the panel, what's your feeling about ISIL, the Islamic State people, the enemy of your enemy, your friend, or is life more complicated? That's my question. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, or is life more complicated? You consider yourself as your enemy, and you consider yourself as your enemy. Honestly, I am the enemy of every person. Who is your enemy? Anyone who kills an innocent civilian is my enemy. Hi, Martha Maratza with Crisis Action. You spoke about what you need from governments like equipment, funding. What can normal Americans do to help you and your organization? I don't know what you mean. But for ordinary people, what can you do to help them? What can you do to help them? To help you. Honestly, I am happy to help and I want to send a message to the people of the United States that there are people in Syria who are able to make the future of Syria the light and the light. Yes. We are not only talking about the people who are expected to be in Syria but we are also talking about the people who are used to living with each other. We are not only talking about the people who are expected to be in Syria but we are also talking about the people who are used to living with each other. The main assistance which you can provide to us is to send the message to your people telling them that there are good people in Syria who are working to build a new future. The reason is that all over the country, all over Syria and all over the people of Syria people have created organizations like Daesh and the Egyptian army who are following the religion and we know that in the Middle East all of us are weak in front of the religion so people have become the leaders of these games. The Syrian people are not extremist. Daesh brought them the extremist group to have a chance to work in Syria because of the ignorance and because the international community abandoned us, they didn't help us and those groups used religion to wash brains of the of the young men and used the religion to take them to war. Yes. A question for Dr. Sameer. Can you introduce yourself? Andrew Overton You mentioned that there's a lot of people with high blood pressure, cancer basic medical issues that we can treat here in a lot of countries. Are these people getting any treatment at all in Syria or I'm assuming their best hope is to get out of the country, but is there any treatment for these people in Syria? I think there are a lot of areas where you're just cut off and I personally don't know and I don't know if anyone really knows about those areas. But there are hundreds of thousands of people in besieged areas that have no access to food or medicine. I'm not sure what the care is like there. I can just say that at least in the hospital I was at I only saw people that were wounded with war injuries from bullets and shrapnel because when you're in that environment, when you're in an area that's constantly under daily sniper fire under daily shelling, daily bombardment you're really only going to go to the hospital if you're injured. That's about all I can say. Laya Reisner. I was wondering if you could explain the relationship between the civil defense units that you work with and the local councils and the provincial councils in Idlib and Aleppo and how that relationship has maybe changed over the last six to nine months. I'm not sure what the relationship is between the civil defense unit and the local council. The relationship is linked with the civil defense unit and the local council. There's a relationship of coordination between the management of the civil defense and the presidency of the head of the provincial council. So there is coordination and so provides a revolt from the provincial council and to the government. We try to get all the working organizations on the ground to coordinate with each other and be in the future under the umbrella of the interim government. I apologize if the question was already asked and answered, so if it is, feel free. But is there any attempt or idea within the civil defense forces to incorporate some sort of mental health or group therapy or anything like that for the civilians that are rescued? No, we don't do that, but we have a plan for every two or three months to support the children, to support the people from the dangers of the war and the mines that have been damaged by the regime and the nuclear bombs and the nuclear bombs. It's not actually till the moment we don't provide mental health care, but we do raising awareness campaigns to spread the message and raise awareness among the people and mainly the children to teach them how to deal with the unexploded bombs, for example, and the other materials of the war. Can you talk about the religious and sectarian makeup of your organizations and of the rescue forces? Actually, we don't focus that much on this. Syrian citizens can join the civil defense. There are no conditions based on any criteria related to sectarian or religious background. We are Muslims, but the first civil defense center, we opened it in a Christian village. Yes, honey. My name is Honey Syed from the Syrian Radio, and I'm honored to be with you today. From all the questions that I have asked you today, what do you think is the role of the media? Honestly, after the media campaign, we were asked to work in Syria. My name is Honey, I'm from Radio Suriyali, also Syrian citizen. And my question was from all the questions that they had received today. What do they think is the role of the media as Syrians? People outside know us more than we do, so we don't know. To be honest, the role of the media is very important in addressing public issues. It's the main message, but the media is genuine. Honestly, today I don't know anything about the media. I want to be able to spread the message of Islam. In the past, we didn't pay much attention for the media work. We focused on our work in rescuing people. And later on, when we met with the Syria campaign people, we were surprised to see that the world outside of Syria know maybe about our work, maybe more than what we know, because people follow us. But in general, I believe it's very important to focus on the media work. But at the same time, he said that there's lack of credibility now in the media outlets in general. And it's very difficult to get a credible piece of news. He wishes that the media agencies focus more on sending pure, honest humanitarian messages rather than implementing political agendas for other governments. Any other questions? Thank you. As you see, there are good people in the Syrian opposition. We have so many of the Syrian people, good people. You can trust. As Ra'id wants, Ra'id doesn't want to be a refugee. He wants to go back home. So in order to do this, we need a fly zone. This is what he wants, so nobody can bomb him and nobody can kill him while he's rescuing others. It's a very simple request. People, they just want to live, and they want to live in peace. As you see, Ra'id talked about there's no sectarians. The first center they open is in a Christian village. Not to say that I have relatives everywhere, but I have relatives in Yakubi. So thank you. With your bare hands, you saved lots of lives. And this means a lot for us. The Syrian people deserve lives, and they deserve to live. And having you all here, it's an evidence that we still have hope. You watched so many ugly footage, but we have Ra'id, and we have Khalid, and we have my cousin here, Faroo, from Homs. We have Dr. Sami, they're all doing great work here. And this is why USIP always welcome these voices. We want to build peace in the world, and this is our mandate. And we want Washington and the globe knows about what's happening in order for us to build a good future. This discussion today is a wonderful example of what USIP is doing for the world and for everybody. We are, inshallah, the voices for the people who has no voices. We're always welcoming you, and you made me so proud. I am proud Syrian today when I see you. And I can see we're going to have hope. And as you said, Ra'id, we're going to build Syria, right? And this is what we want to do. So thank you all for being with us, to spend the afternoon with us, and always come to our event. We welcome you, and we welcome all of you here. And thank you again.