Inside the Battle for Homs, Syria

(@WSJ: Homs, Syria, serves as a warning of what can happen when sectarian passions are unleashed http://t.co/Mmh0gSps1p)

By Sam Dagher, Nour Malas and Sarah Slobin

HOMS, Syria—For many, Homs once represented the best of the Middle East, an ancient city where people of different faiths, Christian and Muslim, did their best to live in peace.

But Syria’s Arab Spring, which began here as a defiant civic exercise, soon exploded into one of the world’s bloodiest battlefields — a warning of what can happen when the region’s sectarian passions are unleashed.

In this Wall Street Journal special project, families from different sides of the conflict try to understand how it all fell apart.

Ismael Youssef and his mother, Ramzia al-Hourany — an Alawite family from a mixed neighborhood

See the article here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-shattered-syria-war-divides-neighbors-1418990806