Minister of War

For 25 years, ex-Special Forces officer Dave Eubank has been dodging bullets to bring humanitarian aid to rebels in Burma's ongoing civil war. Critics say he blurs the line between combat and relief work while proselytising the Gospel. Rolling Stone spent three weeks in the jungle with him to try to learn the truth

- By Jason Motlagh

DAVE EUBANK makes an exploding gesture with his fist to alert the guerrilla soldiers following him of the danger ahead. "From here until we pass the road, the trail is lined with mines," he says, scanning the mountainous Burmese jungle for signs of trouble. "Watch where you step." As his signal relays down the line, conversations fall silent and the air hums with only the sound of heavy breathing and hundreds of footsteps on hardpacked ground.

Eubank picks up the pace, slashing through brush and thorny stalks that tear at his clothing. A former US Special Forces officer and ordained Christian minister, he started the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) in the late 90s to provide medical care and aid to people resisting the Southeast Asian nation's military junta, a brutal dictatorship that has crushed dissent and oppressed ethnic minorities for seven decades in what is the world's longest-running civil war. With a few volunteers and his own wife and kids in tow, Eubank set FBR apart with a relentless commitment to go places other humanitarian groups would not. And that's built FBR into a movement that fields teams and tracks human-rights abuses across Burma's front lines and beyond, from northern Syria to Sudan. But critics say Eubank is a Christian zealot who is risking the lives of his family and followers in a vacuum of oversight. They claim FBR is blurring the line between humanitarian work and ideological activism by training and, at times, fighting alongside armed groups while preaching the Gospels of Jesus.