This is a monster. This is a warlord. This is a sociopathic, cowardly failure.
This is Bashar-Al Assad, he’s been the president of Syria since 2000 and rules over the country with an iron fist, like a dictator.
Russia has backed him and provides his government forces with fighter jets, tanks, UAVs, drones, artillery, etc.
In 2011, during the Arab Springs, mass protests broke out in Syria, due to the incompetence of Bashar.
They called for his resignation, and an end to corruption, high unemployment and authoritarianism. They asked for democracy, regime change, expanded civil rights and the equal rights of Kurds.
On March 15, Bashar ordered his army to crack down on the mass protests, and as a result within a week, already thousands (2000+) of Syrian civilians had been killed by the Syrian government, the deadliest-ever recorded crackdown on a protest in modern-history. The civilians did not back down and did not want to be silenced by an authoritarian regime, so some began forming rebel groups and government-opposition forces.
All hell broke loose; the uprising transformed into an enduring, ever-lasting, destructive war.
By 2012, Bashar was ordering airstrikes on the country’s capital, Damascus, as well as other major cities, like Aleppo and Raqqah.
These photos only show collateral damage caused by Russian and Syrian-government airstrikes. Behind these desolate images lay countless stories and accounts of horror; the human cost of the war.
The regime forced many to flee.
It scarred younger generations and forced everyone to live in fear
It ruined lives within seconds
Sometime in the spring of 2012, rogue foreign fighters began arriving. Many of them had radical Islamist views and were politically brainwashed. They believed their religion had ordered them to do this, while their leaders (who often pretended to be religious) controlled them like sheep for their own economic, political and military interests. They called themselves ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
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But ultimately, in the first few years of the war, it had become clear that all sides committed war crimes of some sort, but the government remained responsible for the majority of civilian deaths (which I’ll get into more detail soon)
According to Amnesty International, both sides, the opposition-forces and the government forces attacked medical personnel:
· According to Physicians for Human Rights, the Syrian government "routinely performed amputations for minor injuries, as a form of punishment", wounded protesters were taken from hospital wards by security and intelligence agents. Ambulances with wounded protesters were commandeered by security agents to go to facilities for interrogation and sometimes torture.
· As of August 2016, more than 200 medical facilities had been attacked by the regime and its allies since the start of the war.
They murdered civilians and destroyed infrastructure without military objective.
· Upon retaking the capital Damascus after the Battle of Damascus (2012), the Syrian government began a campaign of collective punishment against Sunni suburbs in-and-around the capital which had supported FSA presence in their neighbourhoods.
· In 2012, Amnesty confirmed that Armed opposition fighters or jihadis were guilty of having tortured and executed captured soldiers and militiamen, as well as known or perceived civilian collaborators.
· At least 500,000 are estimated to be dead including soldiers. Around 400,000 died from violence, while the remaining perished due to inadequate health services.
· There have been over 207,000 civilian deaths. Bashar Al-Asad and his regime are responsible for over 180,000 of them, the vast majority.
They committed rape and other sexual violence:
· Several testimonies reported the practice of sexual torture used on male detainees at detention facilities. Testimonies were received from several men who stated they had been anally raped with batons and that they had witnessed the rape of boys. One man stated that he witnessed a 15-year-old boy being raped in front of his father. A 40-year-old man saw the rape of an 11-year-old boy by three security services officers.
· Syrian activists claim women were abducted and raped in rebellious parts of the country, possibly using sexual violence as a means of quelling dissent. An opposition campaigner supplied The Globe and Mail with details about six previously unknown cases of violence against women, saying that more such incidents remain hidden as Damascus struggles to contain the uprising. Syrian refugees fleeing to Turkey reported mass rape by Syrian soldiers, more than 400 women were reportedly raped and sexually abused. Several hundred women were reported to have become pregnant after being stopped at guard posts or on roads as a result, evident and appalling war-crimes.
· Estimated cases of sexual-violence related war-crimes is estimated to be at least 15,000 currently.
Allow us to remind ourselves,“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here” - Shakespeare
· By 2014, the US intervened by funding rebels and directly sending troops, with the aim of overthrowing Bashar by funding the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and pushing back against Russia. The pro-American rebels were no different than the regime. They have no moral guidelines when it comes to warfare.
· Then in 2015. ISIS took advantage of the war between the rebels and government, so they went for one big push and expanded their territory. At their peak, they had large swathes of Syria and Iraq where over ten million people were living. They were so brutal and radical, all sides began fighting against ISIS, which had 80,000–100,000 members at one point during the war.
· By 2015, France and the US had cooperated in airstrikes, killing 1,800 people in Aleppo alone which was plagued by ISIS.
· ISIS played dirty and retaliated. Like any criminal, they responded to crime with crime: After nearly a month of careful planning, they targeted innocent blood abroad and killed over 130 in the Paris Attacks which consisted of series of coordinated mass shootings and suicide bombings at theatres and restaurants.
· France actually decreased the frequency of their airstrikes as a result. This is what terrorism is: using fear to drive out foreign forces on a political and military agenda, but nothing will ever justify shedding the blood of innocent people! Nothing.
· By 2019, ISIS was dying, but the other groups raged on fighting each other. Only a few thousand IS members remained, most of whom had been imprisoned.
· Then the US withdrew its troops from Syria in Oct. 6, 2019, betraying the Kurds in an abrupt blow to the efforts against ISIS. Although a formal treaty had never been made, the US had been funding Kurdish rebels throughout the region, because they helped the fight against ISIS. Under the Trump Administration, funding was withdrawn, so Turkey took advantage and attacked the Kurds, particularly the PKK who they consider a terrorist organization (specifically a militant separatist group) and they launched an offensive into Northern Syria under Erdogan, killing a few dozen Kurdish civilians in series of airstrikes. 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria - Wikipedia
· As a result, Kurdish fighters were forced to abandon prisons where they kept ISIS members captive. As a result, hundreds of ISIS members fled. The earliest instance of ISIS prisoners escaping was in late 2019 with hundreds estimated to have escaped. The latest was just three weeks ago with over 240 ISIS prisoners let loose. ISIS still operates and carried out two deadly attacks in Kabul and Vienna , killing over 39 people in total.
The scary bit? Bashar is still the dictator of Syria as you read this, and the world continues to spend more on war than on reducing poverty, hunger and homelessness.
The world just stood there and either watched Syria deteriorate or they contributed to fuelling the fire and prolonged the war.
Now don’t get me wrong, NGOs have aided with humanitarian efforts and many charities. Thank you so much, but it simply isn’t enough. What are Arab leaders doing about it? What are Muslim leaders doing about it? What are world leaders doing about it?
Syria was left in utter ruins.
Bashar betrayed his nation
Bashar massacred his own people (above: Ghouta Chemical Attack)
Bashar shed innocent blood
This is an image of a dying Syrian-child in 2015. He was just 5 years old when he succumbed to his injuries from an airstrike, ordered by Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. The government of his own country did this to him. According to sources, a video of the boy was taken and this is what he had said while crying and complaining of the agonizing pain: (translated from Arabic)
“I will complain to God about you”
Then he uttered his last words before passing away.
