and his days were spent toiling in fields alongside the family patriarch.

Evenings and weekends were devoted to reading with his dad, and summers were spent learning English.

The family relocated to the much larger city of Sweida, before Al-Kontar moved to Dubai in 2006 to pursue work and opportunities that Syria couldn’t afford him. He was employed as an insurance marketing manager until his work permit expired in 2011, the same year civil war broke out in Syria. Sweida was repeatedly attacked by ISIS last year, and Al-Kontar says he’s lost close to 60 relatives in the eight-year conflict.

“[War is] when people become numbers. You will read the news and hear about the number of casualties we had today and even if they are close friends, cousins, your ownfor a
United States Congressional investigation, a witness and a plaintiff for the
Department of Justice Inspector General investigation, and a witness for your
own 9/11 Commission investigation, request your answers to, and your public
acknowledgement of, the following questions and issues:

After the terrorist attacks of September 11 we, the translators at the
FBI's largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down,
even stop, translation of critical information related to terrorist
activities so
that the FBI could present the United States Congress with a record of
'extensive backlog of untranslated documents', and justify its request for
budget and staff increases. While FBI agents from various field offices were
desperately seeking leads and suspects, and completely depending on FBI HQ
and its language units to provide them with needed translated information,
hundreds of translators were being told by their