ABU HAMAM, Syria — Along the Euphrates nearby, regime soldiers can be seen walking calmly on the other side. Fishing boats leave from this “opposition-held” bank and no one shoots.
Tall grass abounds along both sides as well as on the small islands in the middle, used in August 2014 by some to hide amid a massacre of as many as 1,000 mostly men and boys after their tribe, the Shaitat, rose up against the Islamic State (IS).
