Syrian home town of Ahmed al-Ahmed rallies around the Bondi hero, amid the rubble of civil war

In Nayrab, a town near the Syrian city of Idlib, the family of Ahmed al-Ahmed have been overwhelmed by the global response to his act of bravery

• Ten minutes of terror: how the Bondi mass shooting unfolded

It has been almost 20 years since Ahmed al-Ahmed left Nayrab in the countryside near the north-western Syrian city of Idlib. But on Sunday, he was the talk of the town.

Nayab’s residents awoke to a video of Ahmed wrestling a gun from a shooter halfway around the world in Sydney’s Bondi Beach, saving lives in what was the country’s deadliest shooting in nearly 30 years.