Syria, like Iraq And Lebanon, Is On Path Toward Sectarian Split -- McClatchy News
DARKUSH, Syria — The men from the last Alawite family in the northern Syrian town of Darkush have been kidnapped twice. The Saleh men were fortunate both times: They were released by rebels who’d suspected them of being agents for the government of President Bashar Assad.
Their good fortune wasn’t shared by the rest of the Alawites who used to live here. They’ve all left, a pattern that’s been repeated across Syria and mirrors the demographic changes that war brought to its neighbors, Iraq and Lebanon, in past years.
That tension between various religious sects has become a driver of Syria’s civil war, a development that was at the center of a U.N. report released Tuesday that decried the sharp, savage turn in the country’s violence. “The parties to the conflict are using dangerous rhetoric that inflames sectarian tensions and risks inciting mass, indiscriminate violence, particularly against vulnerable communities,” warned the report, compiled by an international panel of inquiry on Syria for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council.
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My Comment: I do not know when this sectarian conflict will end, but I do know that the anger and bitterness is gong to be around for a very long time.