People walk through Ain Issa, one of the camps that holds displaced Syrians as well as foreign wives of ISIS fighters and their children. Thousands of foreign women and children languish in shelters in northeastern Syria, unwanted by their home governments and with no clear future. Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Raqqa's first responders use a digger to push through the rubble of a building likely destroyed in an airstrike carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. Ruth Sherlock/NPR hide caption
A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by U.S. special forces, talks on the radio near Raqqa's stadium as they clear the last positions on the front line on Oct. 16, 2017. The city was an important Islamic State group stronghold. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Men walk past a TV screen showing a news program with an image of Japanese freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda, on Wednesday. Yasuda, who disappeared three years ago in Syria, has been released and is now in Turkey, a Japanese official said. Eugene Hoshiko/AP hide caption
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, shown here at a conference in April, says he will leave his post the last week of November. Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP hide caption
Schoolchildren are led through a dance routine at a U.S. government-supported childcare center in Raqqa. Greg Dixon/NPR hide caption
North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister Herbert Reul, seen with police officers, apologized for mistakes that left a Syrian man falsely imprisoned and then dead when a fire broke out in the jail. Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Image hide caption
A Russian IL-20M (Ilyushin 20M) aircraft lands at an unknown location. The plane is similar to one that was shot down Tuesday over northwestern Syria. Alexander Kopitar/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A member of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the "White Helmets," walking through the wreckage of their center, which was destroyed Thursday by government forces in the town of al-Tamana in rebel-held Idlib province. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
An informal tented settlement for Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. AHA members filmed at this camp, gathering footage for their fundraising video Ruth Sherlock/NPR hide caption
Tima Kurdi holds her necklace bearing a photograph of her nephews, Alan (left) and Ghalib Kurdi. She is the author of The Boy on the Beach: My Family's Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home. Ben Stansall /AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, purportedly seen here in video posted in 2014. AP hide caption
The U.S. says it may impose more sanctions against Turkey, as the diplomatic rift between the two countries deepens. The lira has lost about a third of its value against the dollar since January. Lefteris Pitarakis/AP hide caption
Syrian lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, who survived torture in Syrian regime jail cells, is pictured in Berlin on March 1, 2017. He is among other Syrian torture survivors, lawyers and human rights groups who have filed criminal complaints in Germany alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by top officials in President Bashar Assad's regime. Michael Kappeler/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Tania Joya walks on the beach in Egypt in 2012. When her American husband John Georgelas joined the Islamic State in Syria in 2013, she fled with their children and returned to Texas, where she has built a new life. Courtesy of Tania Joya hide caption
Wreckage of a building described as part of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) compound in the Barzeh district, north of Damascus, in a photo from April. Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Syrian refugee girls stand outside their tent at a camp near the border with Syria in eastern Lebanon on June 13. Hussein Malla/AP hide caption
Participants at a global security conference in Moscow in April gather near a big screen showing a Russian warplane unloading its weapons over a target in Syria. Russia became involved in the Syrian civil war in 2015 in support of its ally President Bashar Assad. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP hide caption
President Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin leave a press conference after their meeting Monday in Helsinki. Trump sided against his intelligence officials, who have said Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP hide caption
The Um Jurius fire base is near Syria's border and Sinjar mountain, where minority Yazidis fled to escape an ISIS genocide in 2014. Jane Arraf/NPR hide caption
Syrian refugees get an identity check on the Lebanese side of the al-Zamrani crossing between Lebanon and Syria on Thursday. Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Hussam Allahham, a refugee from Syria who is trained as a doctor, now works part-time for a refugee aid organization in Wales. He says Syrians can be shocked when they reach small villages, and he tells them to consider it a break after years of struggle to survive. Daniella Cheslow/NPR hide caption
A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the rebel group backed by the U.S.-led coalition, looks out upon the ruins of Raqqa last October, toward the end of the coalition's campaign to dislodge the Islamic State from its former stronghold. Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
The US Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II performs a demonstration flight at Paris Air Show, in Le Bourget, east of Paris, France, last June. Michel Euler/AP hide caption
A member of the Syrian government forces stands at the entrance of Yarmouk refugee camp on Monday, the day that the military announced it had full control of Damascus and its outskirts. Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images hide caption