War-battered Syria now sells itself as a safe corridor amid regional conflict

Ahed Badawi lived for more than a decade in Bahrain, a small Gulf country that — unlike her native Syria — rarely made headlines.

It provided a refuge for her, her sister and their elderly mother during Syria’s 14 years of civil war. “Nothing at all ever happened there,” she said. “I mean, the Bahrainis don’t even know what war is.”