The Syrian Opposition, Explained

As we could watch on the video, there are several rebel groups with opposing interests. As a consequence, they fight each other, and they fight against the Bashar al-Assad Regime too. So the question is ¿Who is fighting who?

The Free Syrian Army (FSA)

It is the most well-known rebel group and is composed by civilians and army defectors. They are really autonomous and they don’t listen to their leader orders. It has been fighting all across the country in different areas.

Rebel Groups Inspired by Al Qaeda

There are two main Al Qaeda inspired groups, one of them is officially recognized by Al Qaeda, and the other one has just been rejected. These Jihad (radical Muslims) rebel groups also receive a huge foreign flow of cash, weapons and fighters. They have begun to fight against non-jihadist rebel groups like the FSA. These groups are established in the north area of the country where Syria borders with the Islamic state of Iraq. Through that border these groups receive support (men and weapons).

Islamist Groups

These groups include the powerful Islamic front. They reject the Al-Qaeda groups and the leadership of the FSA. Due to this situation, they combat with them for the territory. They are settled in the north of the country as well.

Kurdish Fighters

The Kurdish fighters’ priority is to defend their communities. They also would like to have an autonomous area, like the Iraqi Kurdistan. This army controls the territories which border with Turkey.

The government controls most of the cities in western Syria, Homs, Hama and Damascus. It´s believed to be hundreds of individual rebel groups, but the previous are the most important.

Comment

My opinion about this conflict between all these rebel groups is that this situation is moving away the most important objective and the reason why all this civil war has begun: bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The battles between the FSA, the Al-Qaeda inspired groups, the Islamic groups and the Kurdish fighters are hiding and diverting attention from the real enemy.

I don’t support the violence as a solver of conflicts. All these rebel groups should unite themselves to finish this war through the dialogue in the Geneva peace talks. But, as long as all these groups don’t feel represented by the leaders that are there, the peace talks will end in a huge failure. This civil war will go on if these rebel groups continue fighting each other.

Tomorrow the ceasefire that had as objective to let the civilians flee the city of Homs is over. This means that the warfare that has killed more than 130.000 people will go on.

As I said before, all this rebel groups should join their efforts and fight against the same cause. They should follow the example of the Ukrainian protests, which are peaceful protests and they have achieved better results in a shorter period of time. The bloodthirsty government should change the way it face these problems, because they are the example of the people, and if the government attacks the population,  instead of protecting it, then the consequence would be the uprising of the people.

Finally, I think that all these rebel groups should solve their differences by choosing a leader which represents the demands of the people, and this leader should expose those demands in the Geneva peace talks.

Bibliography

http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000002694572/the-syrian-opposition-explained.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/13/world/middleeast/a-snapshot-of-the-dispute-in-syria.html?ref=middleeast