Syrian soldier Ahmad Amuri rolls up on a motorbike to hand water bottles to comrades standing guard under pistachio trees, just a few dozen metres from a Turkish observation point in northwest Syria. President Bashar al-Assad’s troops seized the town of Morek from jihadists and allied rebels on Friday, encircling the Turkish outpost. “Calm has returned to Morek,” Amuri told AFP on Saturday, with water bottles in a black plastic bag, a cap on his head and his uniform covered in dust.
