Ismail, who hails from the village of Ali Shar in Aleppo’s countryside, looked through the binoculars and pointed to a house about 200 meters [0.12 miles] away. “That is my house and this is the tree that I planted before building my home,” the Syrian Kurd told us, after fleeing with his wife and children to the village of Alizar, in the Kurdish areas of Turkey and from whence he planned to return and fight in his homeland.



Near Ismail’s house, he could...

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