Syrians are engaged in an internal struggle to over throw the authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad’s government since January 2011. The Syrian uprising is simultaneous with other Arab Spring struggles in the region. Assad came into power after his father’s, Hafez al-Assad, death. His brother is the leader of the Syrian army.
So far, over 6,000 people have been killed due to the government crackdown of the uprising and cities of Homs, Hama and Baniyas are central to the people’s struggle. Even with Arab monitors on Syrian grounds, the government reported to be killing its citizens by huge numbers every day. Some army personal appeared to be defected and taken arms against the government. Reports coming from Syria indicate that army soldiers who refuse to shoot civilians are summarily executed.
Uprising has a sectarian undertone. Regime is mainly Alawite Muslims while the general opposition belonging to Sunni Muslims.
Many nations including the United States, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, the Arab League and others have condemned the government crackdown of civilians. However, a UN Resolution has been defeated by Russia and China. So, the struggle continues at the moment without a resolution and more and more civilians are being killed every day on streets of Syria.