Syria Kurds gather in celebration of the Nowruz new year festival, which marks the start of spring, in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province. Known for a long time as the Persian New Year, its roots come from a feast day in the Zoroastrian religion and it is marked by peoples of different ethnicities and faiths including the Kurds and the Afghans. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES