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Armless Syrian boy thrives in U.S., hopes family can join him

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  • ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Syrian refugee Ahmad Alkhalaf, left, dashed away from Rayyan Jalal while playing capture the flag, Dec. 10, with friends during a day camp for local Muslim children in Sharon, Mass. The young boy who lost his arms in a refugee camp bomb blast is thriving in his new life in Massachusetts.

  • ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Syrian refugee Ahmad Alkhalaf smiled while playing with friends during a Dec. 10 day camp for local Muslim children in Sharon, Mass. “Anything is possible in this world. You just have to believe in yourself,” said Ahmad, whose arms were blown off above the elbows in a refugee camp bomb blast in 2014, which also killed three of his brothers.

SHARON, Mass. >> A Syrian boy who lost his arms in a refugee camp bomb blast is thriving in his new life in Massachusetts. But the fate of the family he left behind to seek medical treatment in the U.S. remains uncertain.

Over the past year, 11-year-old Ahmad Alkhalaf has attended Democratic President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union, been fitted for prosthetic arms and enrolled in the local public school. He’s also learned to live with his disability, taking swimming, gymnastics and martial arts lessons.

But his father worries what the future holds for the rest of the family he’s trying to bring to the U.S.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump has promised to slow the influx of Syrian refugees into the country or curtail the flow of Muslim immigrants altogether.

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  • Unite this dear boy with his family Trump. It is you, in the end, who are the danger. Not well vetted Syrian refugees who are suffering, in part, because of the poor choices Bush made in causing vast instability in the Middle East while losing 2 wars.

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