Syrian Civilians Pay the Price in Ghouta

After a third consecutive day of attacks, the Syrian governmenthas killed over 250 people in Eastern Ghouta, a region near Damascus. TheSyrian Observatory for Human Rights stated thatthe death toll included 58 children and 42 women, and will most likely rise as the attacks continue.The Assad regime, backed byRussia, claims that the attacks, which include air strikes andbarrel bombs, are necessary to rid Eastern Ghouta of terrorists. Eastern Ghouta is thelast rebel stronghold and home to bothJaysh al-Islam, a Syrian opposition militia that routinely attacks the Assad regime, Islamic State, and selective Kurdish forces, and theal Qaeda affiliateHay ’at Tahrir al-Sham, which aims to overthrown the Assad regime and replace it with the Islamic Emirate of Syria. Meanwhile,Turkish forces attacked a pro-Syrian government force yesterday in the Afrin district, another contested zone in northern Syria, in order to halt reinforcements to theKurdish YPG militia.TheSyrian civil war has entered a new, moreviolent anddangerous phase. Who will come out on top when/if the violence ebbs? It will most likely be the Assad regime because: 1) the regime hasstrong sponsors in the form of Russia and Iran, and 2) the international community has no coherent practical response to the ongoing violence.Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war early on in an attempt to protect its key naval base at the Tartus Port in Syria. Last year, Russiasigned into law an agreement it made with the Syrian governm...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 21, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Sahar Khan Source Type: blogs