Prof William Harris, a Middle East expert, has just returned from a trip to Turkey, where he crossed the border into Syria with an opposition aid group and visited a refugee camp in the opposition-controlled north.
The risk of being kidnapped by either hardline Islamic elements or members of the Government's secret police limited where he could go, and despite being looked after by the aid group, which had its own armed guard unit, he had a ''certain sense of apprehension'' on crossing the border.
''You just don't go across the border yourself, so I was in their hands [the aid group's] as to whether they were willing to have me.''
The camp he visited in Syria was home to about 15,000 people living in a ''pretty disastrous'' situation.
''They were getting a couple of meals a day ... but now they are getting one.''
The visit highlighted some of the difficulties the opposition was facing, with the aid group, called the Assistance Co-ordination Unit, having problems dealing with other parts of the opposition.
The opposition militia which had influence in the area was among those making life difficult.
''They would like themselves to hijack the kudos for distributing aid, so the aid co-ordination unit has problems with them.''
The group had issues dealing with the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, due to its failure to take a lead and determine what happened on the ground.
Prof Harris said the problems he saw were a ''microcosm'' of wider problems within the coalition.
''I really just had two or three hours across the border, but it was enough to see the vacuum [of power] and enough to see the state of disaggregation among the opposition.''
He was also able to visit a refugee camp on the Turkish side of the border in the town of Kilis, home to about 17,000 refugees, who were better looked after. Out of about 500,000 who had fled the conflict in Syria and were living in Turkey, about 200,000 were in refugee camps.
Prof Harris did not see any end in sight for the conflict and said the suggestion Syria would be taken over by ''hardline Islamists'' should the regime fall was a ''lazy assumption''.
Syria was a ''naturally cosmopolitan country'' and by far the majority of people would reject hardline Islamists once the fighting was over, he said.
