The
effort by President Bashar al-Assad's regime to shoot its way out of what started as peaceful protests demanding reform has set off a bloody civil war in which more than 130,000 people have been killed, between a
third and a half of Syria's population of 23 million has been displaced, and what remains on paper as the Syrian Arab Republ
ic has been divided into three complex entities in which terrorist organi
...[+++]zations are not only present but ascendant in each area.