KHAN YOUNIS: The night a blast struck his family's home in the GazaStrip, Ahmed al-Naouq was more than 2,000 miles away but he still jolted awake, consumed with inexplicable panic. He reached for his cellphone to find that a friend had written - and then deleted - a message. Al-Naouq called him from London. The words that spilled from the other end of the line landed like world-shattering blows: Airstrike.Everyone killed.Four nights later, Ammar al-Butta was startled from sleep in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when...
LONDON: Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts. They're among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who've been pressed into Russian penal units known as...