new york times" reporter anne barnard is covering the syrian conflict. she joins me now by skype from beirut. and, anne, why are the united states and russia signaling through their behavior that they're not necessarily, confident, let's say, in a political end to this? >> reporter: well, there isn't much reason to be optimistic right now. i mean, nothing fundamental has changed in the opposition-- in the diametric-- diametrically opposed positions of the syrian government and its syrian insurgent opponents since geneva two, two years ago. there's still a disagreement about whether president assad needs to leave before a political transition begins. there's definitely been some changes on the ground, but there's still, you know, no sign that all the warring parties believe that they can gain more through a peace settlement than they can by continuing to fight. so i think there's reason to believe that the fight will continue. at the same time, you have an entire piece of this multi-sided war that's not really affected by these peace talks, because it's wi

. >> reporter: "new york times" beirut bureau chief anne barnard set out to tell the deeper story behind this image. what she found was an ocean of stories-- of a boy and his extended family-- stories that spanned multiple continents, and told of horrible violence and struggles. >> the kurdis, like many, many syrians had essentially as a family, accepted the deal that existed under syria's police state. you have a relatively decent modest living in exchange for staying out of politics. and like many other millions that's what they were doing. they raised six children in damascus. barbering was the family business. and they were just living their life there when the war and conflict began. >> reporter: after protests against president bashar al assad led to civil war within the country, the kurdis found themselves caught in harm's way. >> their neighborhood was so close to the government artillery bases that the outgoing blasts put cracks in some of the walls of the family houses. at the same time, the police were increasingly stopping people on the streets. one child in the family witnes

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