A mosque is pictured through shattered glass in the old city of Homs during May 2014. Most rebel fighters withdrew from the battleground city.
(YOUSSEF KARWASHAN/AFP/Getty Images)
To see the consequences of war, come to Homs. Known to the Romans as Emesa, Syria's third-largest city is only a 100-mile drive north of Damascus on the highway to Aleppo. A multitude of sects once shared the city, which spreads outward from its stone-built historic center into modern, high-rise suburbs. If you threw a shoe out the window, Homs' inhabitants used to say, it was bound to hit a doctor or an engineer. Now most of the doctors and engineers, like the buildings in which they dwelled, have vanished....
