The Washington Post published an article titled "Who is fighting who
in Syria?" explaining the conflicts and the interest groups in the
ongoing civil war in the country.
Olga Khazan, the author of the article, believes that the opposition to
the Assad regime is mostly formed by Sunni Muslims, comprising
about 60 per cent of the population: "Sunni Muslims form the majority
in Syria. In Syria and Lebanon, they tend to support the rebels and
oppose the Assad regime, and Syrian Sunnis have been subject to ethnic
cleansing at the hands of the Alawite minority in recent months. While
Alawi officers dominate the military leadership, the majority of
troops are Sunni, according to the State Department."
Other confessions, such as Alawites, Greek Orthodox and Armenian
Christians and the Druzhe, tend to support the Assad regime, as they fear
that a potential future Sunni government might enact extremist
policies. Syria’s 80,000 Armenians tend to avoid involvement in
politics and have generally supported Assad’s government because of
the relative stability it provided. “It is natural that the majority
of Armenians would support Bashar al-Assad, since they led safe and
prosperous lives under his leadership, ethnic rights were fully
protected, they have schools and churches,” the article cites Arax
Pashamyan, a specialist in Arab studies at the National Academy of
Sciences of Armenia.
