What is the syrian civil war?
Dr Rodger Shanahan is a former peacekeeper in Syria and belongs to the Lowy Institute for International Policy. The Syrian Civil War is a conflict between its long serving government and those that oppose it. The Assad family has held power since 1971 through the two presidents, Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al Assad. The current president is Bashar al Assad. Unlike much of the middle east, the Assad family is not religiously extreme. They are in fact Alawites, which is a small branch of Islam that is not particularly hard-line (Anthony Sharwood, 2013).
The catalyst of the war was the jailing of some children who painted anti-regime graffiti on March 6th, 2011 (Dr Rodger Shanahan, 2013). Some were killed in detention and public protests erupted around the country. In April 2011, the Syrian Army began firing upon demonstrators, and the protests turned into an armed rebellion. By July 2011, the Free Syrian Army was formed (FSA). “The FSA was made up of a combination of local area tribal groups, deserters from the military and disaffected locals.” (Dr Rodger Shanahan, 2013) A group of Jihadists joined the FSA and changed things to suit their own Islamic agendas. Alawites are the ethnicity of the ruling family. Allegedly the rebel groups are killing alawites. This suggests that not all of the rebels are angels. The death toll of the war is now said to be well over 100,000 (Anthony Sharwood, 2013). |
“There are accusations of atrocities on both sides,” Rodger Shanahan confirms. “We should believe some of them, absolutely. There’s no accurate confirmation, but it’s a nasty horrible civil war with people on both sides getting killed.” |