Lawrence decided to attack from the east instead, coming at the city from the unprotected desert, and to do that he led his men on an audacious, six-hundred-mile loop up from the Hejaz, north into the Syrian desert, and then back down toward Aqaba.

NEWYORKER: How David Beats Goliath

Zaatari is a sprawling camp made up of canvas tents and prefab shelters in the Jordanian desert, close to the Syrian border, which has tripled in size in the last three months, in order to accommodate the thousands of refugees arriving every day.

CNN: Syrian refugee crisis 'spiralling out of control'

Monday, an activist brought Mr. Yousef 11 Syrian soldiers who said they had come under attack as they had attempted to desert their barracks in northern Syria.

WSJ: Armed With Phone, and Dangerous to Syria