ALEPPO: A week ago, British-Syrian doctor known as Abu Shamel was playing with his young son at home in Manchester.
Now he is crouching on a street corner in Syria's Aleppo, picking a sniper bullet out of a confused and screaming man as gunfire whizzes overhead and explosions echo in the background.
Fighters had dragged the victim from the shattered district of Salaheddine. They lay him down a few metres away on a black mattress and exposed his buttocks. Abu Shamel quickly pulls out the bullet, dresses the wound, and sends the man to a secret field hospital, still undetected by state forces.
Rebels in Syria's largest city badly need men like Abu Shamel since fighting began here more than two weeks ago. In the war zone much of this city has become, the opposition's medical supplies are scarce and casualties are mounting.
Abu Shamel, 37, has a thick salt-and-pepper beard and wears a blue-and-black chequered scarf around his head as he treats his patients. He speaks perfect Arabic and English.
When he heard there was a shortage of doctors to treat the victims of Syria's bloody 17-month-old revolt, Abu Shamel left his peaceful home in Manchester, England, with two colleagues. They headed to the frontlines of battle in his former homeland.
Like all medics who support the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, he works in secret, avoiding state hospitals.
"Doctors don't refer civilians or fighters to public hospitals and civilians don't dare go there themselves.
If you show up with a shrapnel or bullet wound, it means you are coming from Salaheddine or nearby neighbourhoods, and that means you are a 'terrorist'," Abu Shamal says.
"We are all terrorists," he laughs darkly.
As mortar bombs explode nearby, Abu Shamel sits with six rebels wearing camouflage fatigues and holding assault rifles. He teaches them first-aid basics and then hands out packs of tourniquets and bandages.
"We prepared dozens of these bags to give away and funded them completely using donations we collected from colleagues and friends in Manchester," he says.
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