In the Syrian province of Latakia, a regime stronghold, a small village mourns the loss of a son. Killed in an ambush at the other end of the country, the lieutenant — whose family asked that he be called by his nickname, Abu Layth — was the first soldier to fall from this village of 125 people in Syria’s coastal foothills, two years into a war that has only recently come close enough for the sounds of shelling to be heard.
