Hi. This post (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/those-who-transmit-syrian-voices-are-russian-propagandists-monitors-of-fake-news-negate-syrian-suffering/) answers many of your questions, but is outdated now (I've gone there 7 times not 6 as at time that I wrote this). I'll summarize answers to you in short, tho: I travel solo, except for 2 delegations, and except on three instances in which snipers were present and risk of being killed high: going to Maaloula in June 2014 when snipers were in the hilltops, a Syrian General joined my taxi for the final leg of the route (but when I went back in 2016 i was only with taxi driver and my friend who helped w translations); going to Palmyra in summer 2016, for the same reasons. At one checkpoint I saw a car severely shot-up my machine gun fire. It had traveled the same route I was to travel and ISIS attacked; and in Nov 2016 on one of my 5 trips to Aleppo (2 were completely solo, only taxi driver, 1 was with additional friend/translator, and 1 more with same friend/translator and my colleague, Vanessa Beeley) when I joined a delegation comprising journalists of NYTimes and other corporate media, out of curiosity to see how they would report on what we all saw. During that trip, yes, the Syrian army protected the convoy and put their bodies in front of us when we were in areas of high risk of sniping. All my other travel has been solo, with a single friend helping with accurate translation, usually in a simple taxi and even in mini buses and buses locals use. I've never felt a single time that interviewees were holding back or were spewing a script. Finally, nope, never gone to terrorist areas, I value the head on my neck. As I wrote here (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/a-personal-reply-to-the-fact-challenged-smears-of-terrorist-whitewashing-channel-4-snopes-and-la-presse/): She correctly, however, stated that I’ve never set foot on the “rebel” side. I’m not keen on being beheaded. Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn even wrote:

“They are not there for the very good reason that Isis imprisons and beheads foreigners while Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is only a shade less bloodthirsty and generally holds them for ransom. … all the evidence is that these can only operate in east Aleppo under license from the al-Qaeda-type groups.”