Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart....
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Jung
Sunday, July 2, 2017
War in Syria
Why is there a war in Syria?
7 April 2017
What began as a peaceful uprising
against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad six years ago became a
full-scale civil war that has left more than 300,000 people dead,
devastated the country and drawn in global powers.
How did the war begin?
Long
before the conflict began, many Syrians complained about high
unemployment, widespread corruption, a lack of political freedom and
state repression under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his
father, Hafez, in 2000.
In March 2011, pro-democracy
demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring erupted in the southern city
of Deraa. The government's use of deadly force to crush the dissent soon
triggered nationwide protests demanding the president's resignation. Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Protests in the southern city of Deraa in March 2011 were suppressed by security forces
As the unrest spread, the crackdown intensified.
Opposition supporters began to take up arms, first to defend themselves
and later to expel security forces from their local areas. Mr Assad
vowed to crush "foreign-backed terrorism" and restore state control. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
The city of Homs, dubbed "the capital of the revolution" suffered widespread destruction
The violence rapidly escalated and the country
descended into civil war as hundreds of rebel brigades were formed to
battle government forces for control of the country.
Why has the war lasted so long?
Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Government forces lost control of large swathes of the country to various armed groups
In essence, it has become more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad.
A
key factor has been the intervention of regional and world powers,
including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Their
military, financial and political support for the government and
opposition has contributed directly to the intensification and
continuation of the fighting, and turned Syria into a proxy
battleground. External powers have also been accused of fostering
sectarianism in what was a broadly secular state, pitching the country's
Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect. Such
divisions have encouraged both sides to commit atrocities that have not
only caused loss of life but also torn apart communities, hardened
positions and dimmed hopes for a political settlement. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
The northern Syrian city of Raqqa is the headquarters of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS)
Jihadist groups have also seized on the divisions,
and their rise has added a further dimension to the war. Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham, an alliance formed by what was once the al-Qaeda-affiliated
al-Nusra Front, controls large parts of the north-western province of
Idlib.
Meanwhile, so-called Islamic State (IS), which controls
large swathes of northern and eastern Syria, is battling government
forces, rebel brigades and Kurdish militias, as well as facing air
strikes by Russia and a US-led multinational coalition. Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Thousands of Iranian-backed Shia militiamen are supporting Syrian government forces
Thousands of Shia militiamen from Iran, Lebanon,
Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen say they are fighting alongside the Syrian
army to protect holy sites.
Why are so many outside powers involved?
Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Russia's air campaign aimed to "stabilise" the government of President Bashar al-Assad
Russia, for whom President Assad's survival is
critical to maintaining its interests in Syria, launched an air campaign
in September 2015 with the aim of "stabilising" the government after a
series of defeats. Moscow stressed that it would target only
"terrorists", but activists said its strikes mainly hit Western-backed
rebel groups.
Six months later, having turned the tide of the war
in his ally's favour, President Vladimir Putin ordered the "main part"
of Russia's forces to withdraw, saying their mission had "on the whole"
been accomplished. However, intense Russian air and missile strikes went
on to play a major role in the government's siege of rebel-held eastern
Aleppo, which fell in December 2016. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Rebels have received only limited military assistance from Western powers
Shia power Iran is believed to be spending billions
of dollars a year to bolster the Alawite-dominated government, providing
military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit
and oil transfers. It is also widely reported to have deployed hundreds
of combat troops in Syria.
Mr Assad is Iran's closest Arab ally
and Syria is the main transit point for Iranian weapons shipments to the
Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of
fighters to support government forces. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
A US-led coalition has been conducting air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria since 2014
The US, which says President Assad is responsible
for widespread atrocities, has provided only limited military assistance
to "moderate" rebel groups, fearful that advanced weapons might end up
in the hands of jihadists. The US has conducted air strikes on IS in
Syria since September 2014, and, in the first intentional attack on
Syria itself, hit an air base which it said was behind a deadly chemical attack, in April 2017.
Sunni-ruled
Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to counter the influence of its rival
Iran, has been a major provider of military and financial assistance to
the rebels, including those with Islamist ideologies. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Turkish troops are backing a Syrian rebel offensive to take control of a northern border area
Turkey is another staunch supporter of the rebels.
However, it has sought to contain the Kurdish Popular Protection Units
(YPG) militia whose fighters are battling IS as part of the US-backed
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. Ankara accuses the YPG of being
an extension of the banned Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
In
August 2016, Turkish troops backed a rebel offensive to drive IS
militants out of one of the last remaining stretches of the Syrian side
of the border not controlled by the Kurds. Since then, they have taken
control of some 2,000 sq km (772 sq miles) of territory, according to
the Turkish military, and forced the US to deploy troops to the
SDF-controlled town of Manbij to prevent clashes.
What impact has the war had?
Image copyrightReutersImage caption
There are no reliably accurate statistics on the number of people killed or wounded in the fighting
The UN says at least 250,000 people have been killed
in the past five years. However, the organisation stopped updating its
figures in August 2015. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a
UK-based monitoring group, puts the death toll at more than 321,000,
while a think-tank estimated in February 2016 that the conflict had caused 470,000 deaths, either directly or indirectly.
Five million people - most of them women and children - have fled Syria,
according to the UN. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have
struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent
history. Image copyrightGetty ImagesAbout 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in
Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the
burden. A further 6.3 million people are internally displaced inside Syria.
The UN estimates
it will need $3.4bn (£2.7bn) to help the 13.5 million people who will
require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2017.
Almost 85% of Syrians live in poverty,
with more than two-thirds of the population in either extreme or abject
poverty. More than 12.8 million people in Syria require health
assistance and more than seven million are food insecure amid rising
prices and food shortages. Households spend up to a quarter of their
income just on water. Some 1.75 million children are out of school. Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Almost half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million has been displaced by the war
The warring parties have compounded the problems by
refusing humanitarian agencies access to many of those in need. Some 4.9
million people live in besieged or hard-to-reach areas.
What's being done to end the conflict?
Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Previous attempts by the UN to broker a political settlement have failed
With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat
on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a
political solution could end the conflict. The UN Security Council has
called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent".
Peace
talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two
rounds, with the UN blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss
opposition demands.
A year later, the conflict with IS lent fresh
impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. The US and
Russia persuaded representatives of the warring parties to attend
"proximity talks" in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a Security
Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a ceasefire and a
transitional period ending with elections. Image copyrightReutersImage caption
A local truce in the Homs suburb of al-Wair in December 2015 allowed rebels to be evacuated
The first round broke down while still in the
"preparatory" phase, as government forces launched an offensive around
Aleppo. The talks resumed in March 2016, after the US and Russia
brokered a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" that excluded jihadist
groups. But they collapsed the following month.
Turkey and Russia
brokered another truce after the fall of Aleppo. In January 2017, they
and Kazakhstan hosted the first face-to-face meeting between rebel
fighters and government officials since the war began. That was followed
by a fresh round of UN-mediated talks in Geneva, which UN envoy Staffan
de Mistura said "achieved much more than many people had imagined we could have".
What is left of rebel territory?
Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Several opposition-held districts and suburbs of Damascus are under siege
The fall of Aleppo means the government now controls
Syria's four biggest cities. But large parts of the country are still
held by other armed groups.
Rebel fighters and allied jihadists are estimated to control about 15% of Syrian territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
US officials said
in early December 2016 that there were 50,000 or more "moderate"
rebels, concentrated in the north-western province of Idlib and the
western Aleppo countryside.
Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists are a key part of the rebel alliance controlling Idlib province
Rebels also control smaller areas in the central
province of Homs, the southern provinces of Deraa and Quneitra, and the
eastern Ghouta agricultural belt outside Damascus.
Kurdish forces,
who say they support neither the government nor the opposition,
meanwhile control much of Syria's border with Turkey, as well as a large
part of the country's north-east.
And although they have suffered
extensive losses in the past two years, IS militants still hold large
parts of central and northern Syria, including the city of Raqqa.
