Marc Smith

2 months ago | nbcnews.com | Richard Engel |Marc Smith |Ammar Cheikh Omar

HASAKAH, Syria — In a network of prisons and detention camps across northeastern Syria, the Islamic State militant group has an army in waiting, and fanatical support for its brutal regime lives on. For now the prisons and camps are guarded by the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led fighting force that battled alongside the U.S. military to destroy ISIS’ so-called caliphate.

Dec 12, 2024 | nbcnews.com | Marc Smith

Dec. 13, 2024, 10:02 AM UTCBRAGA, Portugal — Collected from a family gravesite shortly before she left Kabul, the rocks and dirt in a tiny plastic container are among 15-year-old Farida Ahmadi’s most cherished possessions, a reminder of home. Three years on and 4,000 miles away, in her new home in northern Portugal, it remains unclear if she will ever return to that sacred place in Afghanistan or see her family in the flesh again.