Current situation in Syria

[ArtTheClown]

Is anyone else interested in a thread discussing Syria?

I've been concerned about what I'm reading - BBC is just reporting "clashes with Assad loyalists", but I'm seeing claims on SM about attacks on minority civilians and Turkey now in northern Syria. I'm strugging to verify the information though so if anyone has any more information than that I'd be interested to see it.

I'm unfortunately not too surprised at this - the void left by unpleasant strongmen always seems to create chaos, and I thought the celebrations about Syria being "free" seemed premature. I had hoped I was wrong.

Mali too?

Mali too, that’s been going on well over a decade now surely. It’s rarely reported on.

Amir Tsarfati updating now

Another day, another horror. Christians crucified and shot in the head.

Not really. It makes perfect sense that a massacre of 745 civilians gets less coverage than a massacre of 1,239 civilians and less coverage than 16 straight months of massacres amounting to ~50,000 civilians.

You know that both the Druze and Alawites are minority muslim sects?

One aspect worth noting is that neighbouring countries ARE trying to help:

Turkey has taken in 3 million Syrian refugees since the fall of Assad and is allowing more and announced they can all stay longer.

Israel has announced some 24,000 work permits set aside for Syrian Druze to cross into the Golan Heights to work & live to get away from the persecution in Syria.

Lebanon and Jordan are also allowing Syrian refugees to cross over the borders to safety.

Wonder no more, it is because the neighbouring Arab countries opened their borders to Syrian refugees from the start. Israel lagged behind, but has stepped up by announcing 24k work permits so Syrian Druze can cross into the Golan Heights.

That's great to hear.

@LoremIpsumCici 745 civilians were murdered in just 2 days. Are you really suggesting that that wouldn’t be leading the News at Ten if it was Gaza rather than Syria?

Are you suggesting it would?

And aren’t the Syrian massacres all over the news now?
After only a small lag due to time zone and Sunday delaying dissemination?

Not much in the news about the 1,190 Russian conscripts killed in the last 24hrs…

I had read around the thousand deaths in the Guardian, but I do not know if things have calmed down now?
And have they voted tet? They were meant to have elections in March.

@LoremIpsumCici Well yes, civilian deaths in Gaza have generally led the BBC news in far smaller numbers than we’ve seen in Syria in the past few days. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places but I can’t see anywhere where it is the leading item or even in the top stories and this was also the case at the weekend. The reporting is in sharp contrast to Gaza.

To be fair I don’t blame Israel for lagging. They probably wanted to ensure that the people who they were taking weren’t Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist group.

Many adult men in that region are worse than animals. It's supposed to be the holy month too, so murdering people is OK?

I thought they had a 4 year timeline to elections.

Yes I think things have calmed down. But very , very tense and fragile situation for Syria.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/10/middleeast/syria-violence-explainer-intl-latam/index.html

and if anyone else is interested in how disinformation is affecting the situation, this is good read.

amp.dw.com/en/syria-civil-war-hts-bashar-assad-regime-fake-news-disinformation-v2/a-71210900

You do know that they have mainly killed other Muslims right? This fact seems to have very lost on this thread.

Islam itself doesn’t condone terrorism, any month of the year. And a tiny proportion of Muslims are extremists.

Of course I know and that's OK?

You do know that they have mainly killed other Muslims right?

This is often brought up, why? It's not a good thing either

Women and children muslims? Yes, horrific. None of them bearing arms. Just outright slaughter.

I’m bringing it up because people on this thread are very concerned about Christians being killed. I feel like some posters are keen to portray Islam as a religion that is inherently violent and by continually highlighting only the deaths of Christians they are suggesting that Islam threatens our own culture.

They are ignoring the fact that Muslims are most likely to suffer from this extremism and it more about various groups vying for control rather than something that is actually about religion.

Actually, the Guardian, for example, does not mention attacks on christians. Only on alawites. I wonder why and if they want to silence it. Because it will not be the first time. It is not safe to be a minority anywhere.

Whole families, the article states!

I think most people can make a difference between Islam and Islamism, but the number of times I have heard by now that all Islam is bad is rather large. It is a problem indeed. Islamism needs to be crushed, but how I wonder.

Im not sure why you object to posters highlighting the vulnerability of Christians in the region?
Of course you’re right that many different Muslim sects are victims of Islamic extremism. Ultimately Muslims are the most likely to suffer as they are more numerous in the region but proportionally Christians are the most vulnerable and the most likely to suffer in these regions when there is political instability.