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. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES