5 reasons why the Syrian civil war won't end anytime soon
The image of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, injured and traumatized by fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo, captured the world’s attention.
Footage of the bloodied and dust-covered boy went viral after it was provided by Syrian journalists at the Aleppo Media Center. It shows him sitting in an ambulance, rubbing his head and looking surprised at the blood on his fingers.
Boy, dazed and bloodied, becomes the face of Aleppo
He is one of innumerable casualties of a civil war that has raged for more than five years: hundreds of thousands of killed, millions of refugees who’ve flooded neighboring nations and millions more trapped in a humanitarian crisis. Yet the war grinds on. Despite repeated attempts at a lasting cease-fire and world outrage triggered by tragic images such as Omran’s, an end to the fighting is nowhere in sight.
Here’s why:
The country is irreparably divided
The fighting, which started in March 2011 with a crackdown by Syrian government forces against non-violent demonstrators, has pitted part of the country’s Sunni majority against the ruling Allawite minority, which has allied itself with other Sunnis, Kurds and Christians. Neither group of combatants shows any willingness to stop fighting short of total victory.
The divide is apparent in Aleppo, once Syria's most populous city. Syrian regime forces who control the western part of the city fight alongside Kurdish forces. The eastern part of the city is controlled by rebel forces who are mostly Sunni Arabs. Their battle for control has left the city in rubble and 2 million civilians desperate for food, water and medicine.
Though every part of Syria is unique, Aleppo in the northwest is critical, said Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It's a key to the Syrian civil war because if the regime loses Aleppo, it means there's no chance to keep the unity of Syria," Balanche said. "If the regime controls the city, they will control all the north of Syria."