The bloodbath in Syria continues. Sunnis have been massacred twice in the homeland of the Alamites. President Bashar al-Assad belongs to the Shia community. Israeli air raids on Damascus have dampened hopes about the conflict being confined to Syria. Russia has relented and at a meeting in Moscow, Russian leaders and US Secretary of State John Kerry, it was announced that a conference on Syria would take place soon. But will it bring peace? Alamite paramilitaries rampaged against the Sunni majority in a number of places, especially in the port of Banias. About 400 persons were killed including many children.
In recent weeks, government troops have had the upper hand. Experts say that Assad is trying to create a mini-state for Shiyas. Hizbullah terrorists, all of them Shiyas are backing Assad’s troops who have severed links between rebel-held suburbs in Homs and have taken a part of Damascus which is on a key supply route for the opposition. So the civil war has turned into a Shiya-Sunni confrontation. Assad’s Shiyas are supported by Hizbullah in Lebanon and Shiya Iran while the Sunnis get the backing of co-religionists in the Gulf region. Israeli air raids are aimed at destroying Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles. On the other hand, the Syrian government is trying to rope in Palestine on its side. The US administration is under growing pressure to act in Syria. But the fact that the rebels are also using chemical weapons has enabled President Barack Obama to equivocate. All eyes are on the conference mooted at the US-Russian meeting in Moscow on May 7. Britain and France have all along been in favour of the intervention of Western powers in Syria.
