Conflict between FSA and Syrian arm

The Ba'ath Party government came to power in 1963 after a successful coup d'tat. In 1966, another coup overthrew the traditional leaders of the party, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. In 1970, the Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad seized power and declared himself President, a position he would hold until his death in 2000. Since then, the Ba'ath Party has remained the sole authority in Syria, and Syrian citizens may only approve the President by referendum and do not hold multi-party elections for the legislature. In 1982, at the height of a six-year Islamist insurgency throughout the country, Hafez al-Assad conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama to quell an uprising by the Sunni Islamist community, including the Muslim Brotherhood and others. This became known as the Hama massacre, which left tens of thousands dead. The issue of Hafez al-Assad's succession prompted the 1999 Latakia protests, when violent protests and armed clashes erupted following the 1998 People's Assembly Elections. The violent events were an explosion of a long-running feud between Hafez al-Assad and his younger brother Rifaat. Two people were killed in fire exchanges between Syrian police and Rifaat's supporters during a police crackdown on Rifaat's port compound in Latakia. According to opposition sources, denied by the government, the protests resulted in hundreds dead and injured. Hafez al-Assad died one year later, from pulmonary fibrosis. He was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, who was appointed after a constitutional amendment lowered the age requirement for President from 40 to his age of 34. Bashar al-Assad, who speaks English fluently and whose wife is British-born, initially inspired hopes for reform; a "Damascus Spring" of intense social and political debate took place from July 2000 to August 2001. The period was characterized by the emergence of numerous political forums or salons where groups of like-minded people met in private houses to debate political and social issues. Political activists such as Riad Seif, Haitham al-Maleh, Kamal al-Labwani, Riyad al-Turk and Aref Dalila were important in mobilizing the movement. The most famous of the forums were the Riad Seif Forum and the Jamal al-Atassi Forum. The Damascus Spring ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. Opposition renewed in October 2005 when activist Michel Kilo collaborated with other leading opposition figures to launch the Damascus Declaration, which criticized the Syrian government as "authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish" and called for democratic reform.

Before the uprising in Syria began in mid-March 2011, protests were relatively modest, considering the wave of unrest that was spreading across the Arab world. Syria remained what Al Jazeera described as a "kingdom of silence", due to strict security measures, a relatively popular president, religious diversity, and concerns over the prospects of insurgency like that seen in neighboring Iraq. The events began on 26 January 2011, when Hasan Ali Akleh from Al-Hasakah poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire, in the same way Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi had in Tunis on 17 December 2010. According to eyewitnesses, the action was "a protest against the Syrian government". Two days later, on 28 January 2011, an evening demonstration was held in Ar-Raqqah to protest the killing of two soldiers of Kurdish descent. On 3 February, a "Day of Rage" was called for in Syria from 4 5 February on social media websites Facebook and Twitter; however, protests failed to materialize within the country itself. Hundreds marched in Al-Hasakah, but Syrian security forces dispersed the protest and arrested dozens of demonstrators. A protest in late February at the Libyan Embassy in Damascus to demonstrate against the government of Muammar Gaddafi, facing his own major protests in Libya, was met with brutal beatings from Syrian police moving to disperse the demonstration against a friendly regime. On 6 March young boys were arrested in the city of Daraa for writing the slogan "the people want to overthrow the regime" on walls across the city. The following day 13 political prisoners went on a hunger strike protesting "political detentions and oppression" in their country demanding the implementation of civil and political rights. Three days later dozens of Syrian Kurds started their own hunger strike in solidarity with these other strikers. During this time, Ribal al-Assad, a government critic, said that it was almost time for Syria to be the next domino in the burgeoning Arab Spring. Syrian civil war It is an ongoing armed conflict in Syria between forces loyal to the Ba'ath Party government and those seeking to oust it. The conflict began on 15 March 2011 with nationwide demonstrations as part of the wider protest movement known as the Arab Spring. Protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar alAssad, as well as the end to nearly five decades of Ba'ath Party rule. In April 2011, the Syrian Army was deployed to quell the uprising, and soldiers were ordered to open fire on civilians. After months of military sieges, the protests

evolved into an armed rebellion. Opposition forces, mainly composed of defected soldiers and civilian volunteers, became increasingly armed and organized as they unified into larger groups, with some groups receiving military aid from several foreign countries. However, the rebels remained fractured, without organized leadership. The Syrian government characterizes the insurgency as "armed terrorist groups." The conflict has no clear fronts, with clashes taking place in many towns and cities across the country. The Arab League, United States, European Union, GCC states and other countries have condemned the use of violence against the protesters. China and Russia have opposed attempts to agree to a UN resolution condemning Assad's actions, and advised against sanctions, saying that such methods could escalate into foreign military intervention. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership because of the government's response to the crisis, but sent an observer mission in December 2011, as part of its proposal for peaceful resolution of the crisis. A further attempt to resolve the crisis was made through the appointment of Kofi Annan as a special envoy. On 15 July 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross assessed the Syrian conflict as a "non-international armed conflict" (the ICRC's legal term for civil war), thus applying international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions to Syria. According to various sources from Syria, between 40,000 and 52,545 people have been killed, of which about half were civilians, but also including 20,89022,680 armed combatants consisting of both the Syrian army and rebel forces, up to 2,210 opposition protesters and 1,000 government officials. To escape the violence, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries. In addition, tens of thousands of protesters have been imprisoned, and there have been reports of widespread torture in the government's prisons. Conclusions They have been for a long time in war, they should mange that by dialogue with the ONU, because thats its job. Also, they need to put a democracy