Syria
Syria is a country in the Middle East, located between Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon.
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[edit] History
Syria was inhabited thousands of years before Creation Week.[1] It has been part of numerous empires, including the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hittite, Persian, Roman, Ottoman, and French ones. It was once briefly united with Egypt as the United Arab Republic from 1958-1961. After that the Baathists took over, and they later split into the Iraqi faction (eventually led by Saddam Hussein), and the Syrian faction led by Bashar al-Assad today.
Syria was part of the New World Order during the Gulf War.[2]
In Classical times Syria was a wealthy, populous province of the Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire. Saul was on his way to Damascus, Syria to arrest Christians when he fell off his ass and became one himself. Christian, that is.
Today Syria is predominantly Muslim.
[edit] Relations with Israel
Like many Arab counties, Syria has got its ass kicked by Israel numerous times. In 1948 Syria was part of the Arab coalition that failed to wipe out Israel. In the 1967 Six-Day war[wp], Israel chased Syrian troops deep into Syrian territory and kept and occupied the Golan Heights. Israel bombed an alleged "terrorist training camp" in Syria in 2003 and bombed an alleged nuclear reactor research station in 2007. Syria in turn funds and arms groups in Lebanon that fight against Israel.[3]
[edit] Relations with Lebanon
With its capitol and largest city, Damascus, having lost its ancient direct links to the Mediterranean in Beirut and Tripoli, Syria has long depended on and used Lebanon as an economic resource. Syria invaded Lebanon in 1976 and occupied it until 2006. Syria is frequently accused of being behind political assassinations in Lebanon.[4][5]
[edit] Religion
There are many diverse religious groups in Syria, complicating politics and giving the government an excuse to keep a tight lid on everyone.
- Sunnis are the majority, about 74% of the population.
- Shi'as are about 13% of the population, most of whom are Alawis, a minority sect within a minority sect that most of the ruling class belong to. The Alawis (Alawites) splintered off of Shi'a Islam in the 9th century and integrate pagan, gnostic, and Christian doctrines. Alawi literally means "those who adhere to the teachings of Ali," the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis consider the sect heretical.
- Druze are about 3% of the population; they are an ethnic group with their own offshoot of Isma'ili Shi'a.[6]
- Christians make up about 10% of the population.
- There are also ten thousand Yazidi in Syria, whose religion consists of a "Gnostic core belief structure with other elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam," and who are often persecuted for the unintentional (but mythologically related) resemblance of their object of worship, the Peacock Angel, to Satan in Christianity and Iblis in Islam. [7]
In 1973 Hafez Assad[wp] introduced a new constitution which deleted any reference to Islam as the religion of the state and was seen by opponents of the regime, primarily the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, that the Alawite-Ba'athists were not only secularists, but anti-Islamic as well.
There are hardly any Jews left.
[edit] Civil war
The current civil war in Syria began in 2011, during the Arab Spring. Supporters of the Assad regime include the Alawites and other minorities such as Christians and secularists, who fear retaliation from Sunnis and extremists (note that it's also supported by a significant amount of Sunnis who just want peace in the country and are serving in the Syrian Armed Forces). There are multiple different rebel factions involved in this conflict, many of whom are fighting against one another. The most prominent of these is the Islamic State - otherwise known as Daesh - an extremist organization that has taken over the eastern half of the country. Their notoriously violent tactics have earned them the derision of the entire international community; even al-Qaeda regards them as too extreme. As far as Islamist organizations go, there's also the al-Nusra front, which is officially recognized as the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda,[8] and several veterans of Chechen Wars with Russia.[9] Then there's the secular Free Syrian Army, originally created in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian armed forces. They have received extensive funding and support from the United States and its allies[10], although some of its member have since abandoned the secular resistance in favor of Islamist insurgents.[11] The FSA has control over swathes of land in the northwest as well as smaller regions in the southwest, but their control over these territories is considerably more tenuous than that of either the government or the Islamic State. In Syrian Kurdistan to the northeast, the Kurdish Peshmerga are struggling to hold their own against all other factions attempting to claim their land. Both the government and rebel groups have been accused of indiscriminate attacks against civilians,[12] although a consensus existed that the government's atrocities eclipsed those of the rebels (or at least until Daesh gained prominence).[13][14][15] The regime accuses the rebels of terrorism.[16]
[edit] Belligerency
As the Islamic State terror group occupied larger portions of northern and eastern Syria, it came in competition with other Islamist extremists, notably al Qaeda (including the killing of al Qaeda leaders[17]) and slowed its advance on Damascus. It was reported by Agence France Presse that Daesh had been re-selling oil from occupied lands to the Assad regime at blackmarket prices.[18]
In late 2014 al-Nusra overran a small continent of the Free Syrian Army guarding U.S. manufactured TOW missiles[wp][19] which were then used in the captured of two of Assad's major military installations.[20]
[edit] Humanitarian crisis
In 2013 Amnesty International reported extensive attacks on civilian areas from shooting demonstrators to aerial bombardments, ballistic missile attacks and chemical weapons.[21] By mid-August 2014, the international community removed and destroyed the regimes chemical weapons stocks. As part of a diplomatic solution based on a joint U.S.-Russian proposal, the Obama administration withdrew the threat of military force and the Assad regime agreed to give up its chemical weapons and join the international Chemical Weapons Convention.[22]
By August 2014, the United Nations estimated nearly 191,000 have died in the civil war,[23] with 3 million refugees in neighbouring countries and 6.5 million internally displaced. Out of a total population of 22 million, nearly half have lost their homes. [24]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Syria: Muslim Brotherhood Pressure Intensifies. Defense Intelligence Agency. 22 April 1982. Declassified document regarding Hama massacre with background of Ba'athist-Syrian Muslim Brotherhood tensions dating back to 1963.
- See the Wikipedia article on Syria.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/photos/12-oldest-continuously-inhabited-cities/damascus-syria
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/world/middleeast/victory-over-iraq-in-1991-was-swift-but-flawed.html?pagewanted=all
- ↑ http://www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/middle-east-and-north-africa/the-enduring-iran-syria-hezbollah-axis/
- ↑ http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/20/us-lebanon-explosion-idUSBRE89I0N620121020
- ↑ http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-19/world/35498397_1_sassine-square-beirut-assassination-anti-syrian
- ↑ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/172195/Druze
- ↑ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/religion-yazidi.htm
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-tied-to-al-qaeda-play-key-role-in-war.html
- ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/syria-war-rebels-chechnya-islamic-militants_n_2821197.html
- ↑ The Islamic State boasts it has repeatedly bought weapons for appealingly cheap prices from the FSA that it received from Western and "apostate" (meaning Iran) donors. Dabiq, Issue 4, p.41.
- ↑ [1][2]; reports indicate many have defected to DAESH.[3]
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/world/middleeast/syria.html
- ↑ "Template:Citation error". 27 August 2014. http://www.businessinsider.com/r-islamic-state-and-syrian-government-committing-war-crimes-un-2014-8. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
- ↑ "Template:Citation error". 27 August 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/syria-isis-war-crimes-united-nations-un. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
- ↑ "UN Commission: ISIS Not The Sole Agent Of Death And Destruction In Syria". The Huffington Post. 16 September 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/un-commission-syria_n_5828414.html. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
- ↑ http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/syria-troops-seize-control-key-road-north-18636146
- ↑ Al Qaeda’s Top Envoy Killed in Syria by Rival Rebel Group, TIME Magazine, February 24, 2014.
- ↑ http://www.arabnews.com/news/594531
- ↑ http://syriahr.com/en/2014/11/syria-al-nusra-jihadists-capture-us-tow-anti-tank-missiles-from-moderate-rebels/
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/world/middleeast/2-military-bases-in-syria-fall-to-rebels.html?_r=0 TOW missiles proved decisive in the outcomes of the 1980-1988 Soviet-Afghan war and the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
- ↑ http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE24/009/2013/en
- ↑ Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response, CRS, September 17, 2014, p. 17.
- ↑ http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/22/world/meast/syria-conflict/index.html?hpt=imi_c2
- ↑ http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e486a76&submit=GO