What began as peaceful uprising against Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, six years ago became a full-blown civil war and has left more than 300,000 people dead, devastated and as the war enters is seventh year it is glaring that neither side has much regard for civilian causalities.
Some said the catalyst was the jailing and torture of 15 boys who painting anti-regime graffiti in support of the Arab spring. Another theory said the war started with demonstration which mirrored those in neighboring countries. President Assad, responded to the protest by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many. By July 2011, The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was formed, it comprised of local tribal groups, deserters from the military and affected locals. With this Syria began to drift into civil war.
The Syrian civil war (Al-harb al-‘ahliyyah as-suriyyah) is not been opposed by FSA alone, other factions like the Syrian democratic force (SDF), Salah Jidadist groups and the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but all these groups have not in no way reduced the massacre arising from the war, instead they contributed to the increase the death toll.
As the unrest intensified, opposition supporters began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local area. On April 7, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad’s forces, launching 59 Tomahawk Cruise missile at the Syrian air force base which US officials believe a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun has been launched. By February 2016, an estimated 470,000 deaths has been caused by the conflict either directly or indirectly. The warring parties has compounded the problem by refusing humanitarian agencies access to many of those in need as most of the victims lives in hard to reach area.
One still wonders how president Assad, a once upon a time, quite, reserved ophthalmologist turned out to be the devil himself, but I guess it’s a pure case of the apple not falling far from the tree. Despite that 1,300 Tonnes of sarin nerve gas were removed from Syria, chemical weapon has been a recurrence in the bloody civil war. Recently the US administration said they found evidence of a crematorium in the notorious Saydnaya prison, this is believed to be used to cover up the number of those killed in prison.
Can any good come out of these war and when will it end? . These are two questions only time can answer.
