From Berlin to the barracks: A Syrian rebel returns home
Mohammad al-Naeemi had everything he could possibly want living in exile in Germany, but he returned to war-torn Syria anyway to fight President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Clutching a rifle to his chest, his back flat against the ground, the 23-year-old shimmies across a dry field in northwestern Syria on his graduation day from training to join an armed rebel group.
"I returned to give back to my country," said the young fighter, wearing a black T-shirt and beige combat trousers.With an opposition group cap fit tightly on his head, he powers through push-ups, counting each one out at the top of his lungs in unison with fellow recruits.
From now on, "I'll reside in military barracks and on the front lines," he said. "It'll be the best place I can possibly live." Naeemi was a high school student in Syria's southern province of Quneitra when peaceful protests demanding change erupted across the country in 2011.
