This is a cat perched on a homemade rocket in Syria. A rebel sniper fighting the forces loyal to President Bashar Assad took the photograph, which was solicited by Jenan Moussa, much-acclaimed correspondent with Al Aan TV in Dubai.
Moussa tells TIME the photographs were taken in early September in Latakia Province, Syria’s Alawite stronghold in the northwest. The man behind the lens is a 22-year-old who identifies as Sunni Muslim; they met while she was reporting months ago at a rebel headquarters in a large forest. When Moussa recently saw him with his camera, she asked him to—for one day—lower his rifle and capture the war around him: scenes that photographers won’t necessarily get access to, or the ones an editor may deem unworthy of publication. “I was looking for his perspective, his world,” she writes. “The pictures give an idea of his surroundings. A cat on a rocket, an airstrike on a nearby house, a child sitting on a box of ammunition.”
“Photography is a way out for him,” says Moussa. For the full set of photographs, see her original post.
— Andrew Katz