Backgammon, football after war reaches Damascus district When Syria's war came to 73-year-old Joseph Mghazi's street in the Abbasiyeen neighbourhood of Damascus, he ignored his neighbour's entreaties to halt his habitual streetside backgammon games. "We would sit and play backgammon as the shells were falling around us," he told AFP in the aftermath of a rebel assault that army forces repelled on Friday after nearly a week of fighting. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES