Newlyweds fight together on Syria frontline....

Aleppo, Syria - Mahmoud al-Halabi was once the driver of a Syrian minister's wife. Nour al-Hassan was a stylish hairdresser. In the early days of the Syrian uprising, their personal rebellions brought them together and have since pushed them both to become fighters in Aleppo's battle against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
 
Mahmoud, a 28-year-old rebel fighting on the frontline in the Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood, was fired from his job three years ago. He said he was jailed and tortured by the regime for a year, and then forced to leave Syria. 
 
His crime? He had fallen in love with the minister's daughter.
 
He fled to Libya, where he took up his professional passion: sculpting. But when the Libyan revolution broke out in February 2011, he joined his friends in their battle against Muammar Gaddafi's forces. 

"This is where I learned most of the fighting skills I now use in the fight against Assad," Mahmoud told Al Jazeera in Sheikh Saeed, now the most active frontline in the city.
 
Nour, 22, was a hair stylist at a salon in the centre of Aleppo. She is also the daughter a senior official in the ruling Baath Party.
 
A few months into the Syrian uprising, Mahmoud returned to Aleppo to join his countrymen in the struggle against Assad. Nour, meanwhile, had created a Facebook account under a pseudonym and became an activist on social media, organising protests and spreading news about the regime's crackdown.  
 
When her father and brother, staunch supporters of Assad, learned about her opposition activities, they beat her to the point that she wound up in hospital. Her story became the talk of the town, and Mahmoud heard about her.

"After I was released from hospital, I was stuck at home. Mahmoud came to help me escape the house," she said. "I didn't know him well, but I still left with him. I completely defected from my family."