New Delhi, May 2 -- 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."

But after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, sparking a regional war, Bahrain and neighboring Gulf countries found themselves in Iran's crosshairs. So the family fled back to their home in Aleppo, which was once the site of some of the civil war's fiercest battles but now offered a safe haven.

War-battered Syria has stood out as one of the few spots of calm in the region's latest confla...