Syrian Conflict

1. Syrian Conflict Eight Short Chapters of the Conflict BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF7sRdOJMD0

2. November 21, 2016 • Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" (JFK, 1962) • http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38056872

3. A bit of History • Syria is a land of fertile frontier, monumental mountains, and desolate deserts. • Syria is the home to several diverse ethnical and religious cultures: the Kurd, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Israelis, Alawite Shias, and Arab Sunnis. • Arab Sunnis account for the majority of the Muslim population • In the twentieth century, Syria was under colonial control of the French. • Not until 1946 did Syria gain its independence. (BBC, 2012) • Although Syria become a sovereign state, and French colonists were out of power, it brought new problems to the face of the Syrian people.

4. Like many countries post-colonial control, Syria spiraled through periods of instability and constant conflict that was fueled by the inability for the different cultural factions in Syria to peacefully coexist. • In essence, Syria was similar to playing “king of the hill” between different groups in the country. • Soon enough other countries recognized Syria’s conflict and allied with them. • From 1958 to 1961, the country was unified with Egypt.

5. In 1963, an army coup organized by Arab Sunnis retook Syria’s independence • It was an Alawite Shias party took control with the support of Egypt. • This committee that initiated a coup consisted at one time or another a Sunni, Amin al Hafiz; a Druze, Hamad Ubayd; and two Alawis, Muhammad Umran and Jadid. After the secession from the UAR in 1961, the Syrian Baath Party was formally reestablished at a party congress in May 1962. • The coming to power of the Baath Party in 1963 is sometimes referred to as "the revolution," although the March 8 coup was not executed by the Baathists and did not actually initiate the great social revolution postulated in Baathist ideology. In any case the party was supreme, but factionalism continued within the Baathist regime.

6. Definitions • The Syrian Civil warishighlysectarianand syncretic • Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, while blending practices of various schools of thought

7. Islam in Syria is followed by 90% of the country's total population: Sunnies • Sunnis make up 74% of the total, mostly of Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman ethnicities. • Sunnis are mainly of the Shari'a madhhab ( doctrine) withpockets of Hanafi and Hanbali.

8. Shias • Shiasmake up the remaining 13% Alawites are the predominantShia group, followed by Twelvers and Ismailis. • Several large Sufiorders are active in the country, including the Naqshbanditariqa( missionnaires), and Qadiriyya. • Sufism as the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam whichissupported and complemented by outward or exoteric practices of Islam, such as Sharia. • Although not traditionallyconsidered as Muslims, the Druze make up 3% of the total population.

9. Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Stephen O'Brien said hundreds of civilians had been killed in eastern Aleppo in the past week

11. Syria • Leader: Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000 (inherited power from his father). • Since March of 2011, at least 250,000 Syrians have been killed according to the UN. • Protestors are calling for political freedom, an end to corruption, action on poverty, and an end to the emergency law of 1963. • Syrian govt. claims the protestors are ‘terrorists and armed gangs’. • The U.S. and EU have imposed sanctions on Syria, but the conflict has not ended.

12. As of yesterday • The number of people living under siege in Syria has doubled this year to almost one million, the UN says. • Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Stephen O'Brien said the figure had jumped from 486,700 to 974,080 in six months. • People were being "isolated, starved, bombed and denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee," he said. • Mr O'Brien also told the Security Council that he was "more or less at my wit's end" over the situation in the divided city of Aleppo, where an estimated 275,000 people living under siege in rebel-held eastern districts face "annihilation".

14. Syria: The story of the conflict • More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. • More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State.  • This is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

15. Dispair, Fear, Displacement

16. Uprising turns violent

17. Uprising turns violent • Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. • After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.

18. Uprising turns violent • The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. • The government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. • By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.

19. Uprising turns violent • Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

20. Descent into civil war

21. Descent into civil war • Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. • Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

22. Descent into civil war • By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict. • By August 2015, that figure had climbed to 250,000, according to activists and the UN. • The conflict is now more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad. • It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in regional and world powers. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KLvjs7Yrtw • The rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has added a further dimension.

23. What ISIS Wants • https://www.prageru.com/courses/foreign-affairs/what-isis-wants

26. 3. War crimes

27. 3. War crimes • A UN commission of inquiry has evidence that all parties to the conflict have committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. • They have also been accused of using civilian suffering - such as blocking access to food, water and health services through sieges - as a method of war. • The UN Security Council has demanded all parties end the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas, but civilians continue to die in their thousands. • Many have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by government aircraft on gatherings in rebel-held areas - attacks which the UN says may constitute massacres.

28. 3. War crimes • IS has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror. • It has inflicted severe punishments on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rules, including hundreds of public executions and amputations. • Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.

29. We're just living on the edge of life. We're always nervous, we're always afraid • Mother-of-nine Mariam Akash, whose husband was killed by a sniper

30. 4. Chemical weapons

31. 4. Chemical weapons • Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several suburbs of Damascus. • Western powers said it could only have been carried out by Syria's government, but the government blamed rebel forces.

32. 4. Chemical weapons • Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. • The operation was completed the following year, but the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in the conflict. •  Investigators found chlorine was used "systematically and repeatedly" in deadly attacks on rebel-held areas between April and July 2014.

33. 4. Chemical weapons • IS has also been accused of using homemade chemical weapons, including sulphur mustard. • The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weaponssaid the blister agent was used in an attack on the northern town of Marea in August 2015 that killed a baby.

34. 5. Humanitarian crisis

35. 5. Humanitarian crisis • More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. • Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. • About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden.

36. 5. Humanitarian crisis • A further 6.5 million people are internally displaced inside Syria, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in 2015 alone. • The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, who will require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. • About 70% of the population is without access to adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to meet their basic food needs, and more than 2 million children are out of school, and four out of five people live in poverty.

37. 5. Humanitarian crisis • The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians in need. • Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid.

38. 5. Humanitarian crisis

39. 6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists

40. 6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists • The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. • Secular moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused global outrage. • So-called Islamic State has capitalised on the chaos and taken control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq, where it proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate" in June 2014. • Its many foreign fighters are involved in a "war within a war" in Syria, battling rebels and rival jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, as well as government and Kurdish forces.

41. 6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists • In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS. • But the coalition has avoided attacks that might benefit Mr Assad's forces. • Russia began an air campaign targeting "terrorists" in Syria a year later, but opposition activists say its strikes have mostly killed Western-backed rebels and civilians.

42. 6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists • In the political arena, opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for supremacy. • The most prominent is the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by several Western and Gulf Arab states. • However, the exile group has little influence on the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected by many opponents of Mr Assad.

44. 7. Peace efforts

45. 7. Peace efforts • 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 in Syria. • 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".

46. 7. Peace efforts • Talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with then-UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands. • Mr Brahimi's successor, Staffan de Mistura, focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires. • His plan for a "freeze zone" in Aleppo was rejected, but a three-year siege of the Homs suburb of al-Wair was successfully brought to an end in December 2015.

47. 8. Proxy Wars

48. 8. Proxy Wars • At the same time, the conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. • The US and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the government and the opposition 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.

49. 8. Proxy Wars • What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers. • Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support. • Tehran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. • Russia has meanwhile launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's opponents.

50. 8. Proxy Wars • The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013. • The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its international backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, along with the US, UK and France.