A pair of Syrian sisters rescued from the rubble after the war.
Since 2011, the Syrian civil war has continued for 12 years. A lot of events have happened in the past 12 years, and Syria has gradually faded into oblivion with the international community, so much so that people forget that the war in Syria continues. A full 12 years of war, led to near1 million deaths2.2 million people were disabled and more than 6 million became refugeesFor Syria, with a population of only 23 million, it is undoubtedly a disaster for the country and the species.
The Syrian army is in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria.
On today's Chinese Internet, when people describe a building as very dilapidated, they will joke"Syrian style".In fact, there is a very cruel truth behind this, that is, today's Syria is really full of ruins and devastation. In Syria, it's not just drinking water, food and clean beds that are hard to come byEven peace is a luxury
Idlib, Syria.
If you want to know what it means to be "a country without a country", then go to Syria。The country has been divided for 12 years, with Kurdish forces in the northeast, oil-producing areas in the southeast controlled by the U.S. military, and the northwestern region still in the midst of a scuffle between the army and the armed forces, while the Golan Heights in the southwest are illegally occupied by Israel.
Diagram of the situation in Syria.
In 2018, Syrian diplomatsJaafariAs a Syrian diplomat, he did not have any say on the Syrian issue, but was "invited" to the UN lounge to let the powers deal with his homeland. This scene should remind the Chinese of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
Jafari's meditation.
In Syria, I saw what old China looked like.
Syria's geopolitical location.
Syria, with an area of about 18It is 50,000 square kilometers, with a population of about 23 million, a GDP of about 18.5 billion US dollars, and a per capita GDP of about 800 US dollars, which is only 6% of China. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Syria's economic level has been directly cut in half, and the oil-producing areas have been controlled by the US military, armed forces, and Kurdish forces, resulting in very little financial revenue in Syria.
A Syrian father crying with a child in his arms, whose mother had just died in the bombing.
In 2014, the United Nations issued a human rights report:Without food and medicine aid to Syria, as many as 4 million Syrians will die of famine or disease in the next five years。But Syrians are more worried about dying in the war than about famine or pestilence. There are more than 1,200 armed factions in the Syrian war, and it has almost become a "pot of porridge".The country lacks money, water, food, medicine, everything, guns, ammunition and armed men.
Part of the warring parties in Syria.
Actually, Syria has a glorious history, and it is locatedTwo river basinsIt is the richest land in the Middle East, but because of this, Syria has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times, and there are constant disasters in war. It was conquered by the Assyrian Empire, the Alexander Empire, the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, the Arab Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the French colonizers, and many other forces, who came and wentSyria is like an old man, speaking of all this without words.
The Crescent of the Two Rivers Basin.
The capital of SyriaDamascus, once the most prosperous city in the entire Arab world, there is an Arabic proverb:"If there is heaven on earth, Damascus will be in it."。It is a multicultural mix of ancient Ananiya churches and splendid Umayyad mosques, and is home to one of the greatest dynasties in Arab historyUmayyad dynasty
DamascusIn 632 AD, the Arab Empire was founded, and Islam began to spread on a large scale. In 661, the Syrian governor succeeded in seizing power and set his capital in Damascus, as it is calledUmayyad dynastyThe history books of the Tang Dynasty in China refer to the Arab Empire during this period as ".White Clothes Big Food".Damascus at this time was on a par with Luoyang in China, Venice in Italy and Paris in France.
Umayyad dynasty
From 1096 to 1291, under the call of the Roman Catholic Church, several major countries on the European continent launched eight campaigns on the eastern coast of the MediterraneanThe Crusades, which established several regimes, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In 2005, the American film "Heavenly Dynasty" tells the history of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In 1171, Saladin, a powerful ruler from Egypt, destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem and recaptured the Holy City, and the Arab Empire became powerful for a while. However, in 1258, the Mongol Empire rose and swept across Eurasia with iron cavalry, and after conquering Baghdad, the Arab Empire was declared extinct and the Middle East fell into warlord warfare. In 1516, a new ruler rose from the peninsula of Asia Minor in the north, that isOttoman Turkish Empire, the last classical empire in the Middle East.
The Ottoman Turkish Empire (1299-1923) was a Muslim empire founded by the Turks that spanned Europe, Asia and Africa.
At that time, Syria was the main area of European trade with the Ottomans, and Syrian Aleppo gradually became the second largest city after Constantinople, and the British also established it for this purposeLondon-Levant** Company, and the French became a protectorate of the Maronite ** in Syria. As the Ottoman Empire became more and more decaying, many of the regions under its rule began to drift away from Germany.
In 1914, World War I broke out, and the Ottoman Empire was on the wrong side and became an ally of Germany. Britain and France immediately began to support Arab nationalism and planned the famous Arab uprisingLawrenceUnder the leadership of the Hashemite family, the Ottoman Turkish Empire collapsed.
Lawrence, the initiator of the great Arab uprising.
However, Britain and France had already partitioned Arabia in advance, and their promise of an independent Arab state was only a pretext. The Arab prince Faisal raised troops and rushed to Damascus, who would have thought that the French would not reason with you, and directly sent troops to occupy Damascus.
Britain and France partitioned Arabia.
As soon as the French arrived in Syria, they found that the situation here was very complicated, there were both Arabs and Kurds, and the religion was even more chaotic, ** Christians and Muslims lived next to each other, and Muslims were divided into Sunnis and Shiites, and there was an Alawite among Shiites. The French have one trick: demolitionIt can be said that all the problems in Syria today were first caused by the French.
French troops entered Syria.
In fact, Syria at that time, including today's Lebanon, was a very complex regionThe French divided Greater Syria into five parts according to ethnicity and religionIn the long run, the Syrians will definitely not do it, so from 1925 to 1927, as many as 50 anti-French uprisings broke out, and the French were also tired, so they simply ran to the ** outlaw settlement for remote control, which was later LebanonIt was because of the support of the French that Lebanon later officially seceded from Syria.
French Syria.
Afterwards, the French also learned from the Englishman next doorCo-opt the minority and suppress the majority。In order to suppress the Sunnis, who make up 65 percent of Syria's population, the Alawites, a branch of Shia who make up 23 percent of the population, were found, and this religious sect is actually separate from Sunnis and Shiites, but because of the worship of Shia prophets, they are grouped into it.
Lebanon is one of the most open and tolerant countries in the Middle East today due to its predominantly religious beliefs.
The Alawites are the most moderate and secular sect of IslamThe French consciously cultivated them, giving them a lot of autonomy and financial assistanceThis has made the Alawites, who make up only about 14 percent of Syria's population, the wealthiest and most socially high-ranking ethnic group in SyriaThis power structure continues to this day, and the Assad family in power in Syria today is the Alawites.
The Assad family.
With the protracted anti-French uprising, the French could not hold on, and in 1936 the Franco-Syrian Treaty was signed, in which France recognized Syria's autonomous status. After the Second World War, the old colonial imperial system of Britain and France collapsed, and the hegemony of the United States and the Soviet Union rose。Under the pressure of the United States and the Soviet Union, the British and French colonies moved towards independence, and Syria officially became independent in 1946.
Flag of Syria.
However, the good life did not come with the establishment of the state, and after independence, Syria changed its cabinet for 20 terms in 10 years, and politicians from all walks of life came and went like a marquee, and the state power was very unstable. Under such circumstances, the Arab Socialist Party and the Arab Baath Party stepped onto the stage of historyThe former united the peasants and workers, the latter advocated nationalism, and the struggle for the line was always there.
The Arab Baath Party is a pan-Arab nationalist party.
In 1948, according to the United Nations resolution, the State of Israel and the State of Palestine were established in the Palestinian areas at the same time, which made the Arab world very unhappy, and the first Middle East war began in the same year, as a result of which the Arab coalition forces returned with a feather. During the Cold War, almost all countries had to choose sides, Israel was covered by the United States, and the Arabs, of course, hugged the Soviet Union.
The First Middle East War.
In 1956, Egypt's ** Nasser successfully recaptured the Suez Canal from Britain and France, and his fame was greatly enhanced, inspiring the entire Arab world, and he was named the "Lion of the Middle East". In 1958, Syria merged with Egypt as soon as its brain became "".United Arab Republic"., but Nasser, after all, is Egyptian, he banned the activities of political parties in Syria, and ransacked the Syrian ** bank, fattening his own people. This has upset a large number of Syrian oppositionists, mainly these peopleAlawites
Nasser. In 1963, Syrian Alawite officers staged a coup d'état, seized power and seceded from Egypt. Since then, Syria has entered a period of coups d'état, and political chaos has led to Syria's weakness. After the Third Middle East War in 1967, Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights to this day, which made a large number of opposition groups in Syria extremely unhappy.
Golan Heights. So, in 1970, one of the opposition members officially attacked, he was the old Assad, and Syria has since enteredAssad era。The elder Assad was born in a family of village sages, joined the army as a young man, went to the Soviet Union to study, and later joined the Baath Party, all the way to the top, and after the coup d'état, he vigorously promoted Alawites into the *** power to further consolidate.
Hafez al-Assad, leader of the Arab Baath Party, former Syrian **, father of Bashar al-Assad.
The military and police system, the intelligence department, the financial department, and the defense apparatus are all Assad's people, and the Assad family has also supported an Alawite militia and allowed them to smuggle it, accumulating a lot of money. StillAssad abandoned pan-Arab nationalism and theocratic institutions in favor of secularization and Westernization.
Old Assad. The elder Assad openly negotiated peace with Israel, ceded the Golan Heights, and no longer participated in the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, and established diplomatic relations with Iran, and then vigorously developed the economy. Relying on oil exports, Syria's economy grew rapidly from 1980 to 2000, and its per capita GDP was four times that of China during the same periodAnd it is worth mentioning that the TV series produced in Syria have been one of the main cultural products of the Arab world before the start of the civil war, and most of them are historical heroic dramas against the Crusaders and the British and French powers, which are very popular.
Syrian TV series.
In 2000, the elder Assad died, and he originally appointed his eldest son to take over, but the eldest son died early, and he had no choice but to be succeeded by Assad, who was born as a doctor, which is now Syria**Bashar al-Assad。He had no political experience at all, he was not yet 40 years old when he took over, and as soon as he came to power, he replaced *** with his own people, just like his father. What's even more outrageous is that he also got rid of his cousins Makhlouf family and swallowed up all of their $10 billion net worth.
Bashar al-Assad
Objectively speaking, since the beginning of the new century, Syria has taken a sharp turn for the worse. In 2003, the outbreak of the Iraq War and the entry of US troops into the Middle East led to the influx of more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees into Syria. This requires a great deal of political wisdom, which Assad apparently does not have.
Iraq War.
In 2011, when the Arab Spring broke out in Tunisia and then swept across the Arab world, Assad could only be quelled by force in the face of public turmoil, which gave the opposition an opportunity. In 2011, it was officially the year when Syria's fate changed completely, and the following year, an armed rebellion of the Sunni ** army, which received aid from Turkey, was formed"Free Syrian Army"., the Syrian civil war broke out.
The Free Syrian Army, one of the first Syrian opposition forces to oppose Assad**, is backed by Turkey.
Immediately afterward, Kurdish forces sprung up, and a large number of extremist groups also took advantage of the gap in the US military to break the order in the Middle East, and poured into Syria from Iraq, which became a battlefield of fierce competition overnight. Assad**, supported by Russia, IranOnly the Damascus region can be controlled,Kurdish forces backed by the United StatesSupporting the army to stand on its own in the northeast, whileOpposition forces backed by Turkey and Saudi ArabiaThere are constant guerrilla attacks, and there is an IS in the middle, and as many as more than 1,200 armed factions "participate in the grand event".
The Shiite crescent of Iranian fantasy.
Obama, the then leader of the United States, publicly declared his support for the opposition forces, which made the Sunnis feel furious, thinking that with the support of the United States, they would soon be able to overthrow the rule of the Alawites, and the result was 12 years. Needless to say, Russia has been a traditional ally of Syria since Soviet times, and it also maintains permanent military bases in SyriaPort of Tartus
Assad and the ** army.
Iran is motivated by the need to create a Shiite crescent, and while other Sunni Arab states are of course trying to counterbalance Iran, Turkey's motives are complex: it does not want Iran to grow bigger, and it wants to fight the Kurds. There are 14 million Kurds in Turkey, and Kurdistan is a huge four-nation border area, and Turkey is almost trying to get rid of it, so it intervenes in the Syrian civil war to fight the Kurdish forces.
Kurdistan, located at the junction of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey, has a Kurdish population of more than 32 million.
But Assad**, as an Alawite and an ally of Russia, although he does not like the Kurds, but obviously cannot tolerate the arrogance of Turkey, so Turkey directly turned its face, supported the Syrian opposition, and opened the border, allowing a large number of militants to pour into Syria, and in 2012 alone, 100,000 militants entered Syria.
Syrian Kurdish People's Army.
As a result, Syria has become a chessboard for all parties to compete, and it can be said that no country except Syria wants to see the end of the Syrian warIn Syria, I saw the old China where warlords were fighting and the people were struggling to make a living. In 2014, Assad reached the darkest moment, one step away from **, the domestic opposition forces are growing stronger, the Kurds are close to independence, the US military continues to steal oil, the Turkish army illegally crosses the border from time to time, and extremist groups are fighting more and more.
Syrian ** Army.
Prior to this, Libyan Muammar Gaddafi and Egypt's Mubarak were all destroyed in such circumstances, and Assad seemed to be on the verge of following in their footsteps. Except for some assistance from Iran and Allah in Lebanon, Assad ** was isolated, and even Assad himself was ready to go into exile in Iran, and as a result, Russia went down directly in 2015, and the situation changed abruptly.
Russian troops parade in Syria.
Putin is well aware that Russia cannot afford to lose the gateway to the south, and at the same time supporting Syria can also bring Russia new strategic benefits to the Middle East. In 2015, Assad sent an invitation to Russia, and a 4,000-strong advance Russian special forces arrived on the Syrian battlefield, which directly reversed the defeat of the Syrian army and gave Assad hope to it.
Russian troops in Syria.
In fact, Russia has been waiting and watching, but I didn't expect Assad to pull his hips so much, so in order not to lose this ally, he made a painful decision to make this trip to muddy waters. In addition to ground forces, Russia has also provided gratuitous air support to SyriaIn total, in 2021, the Russian Air Force carried out 340,000 missions, striking 120,000 military targets。With the help of Russia, Syria recaptured Aleppo, which had been lost for almost 9 years, for the first time.
Russian airbase in Syria.
In 2015, Assad ** controlled only 190,000 square kilometers of land, accounting for 10% of the country's area;With the arrival of the Russian army, the area of military domination was expanded to 820,000 square kilometers, accounting for 55%., it can be said that without Russia, Syria ** will not survive 2015. When the time comes, Syria will either be reduced to *** territory, or there will be no *** state, and now there will be at least one Assad ** who can guarantee normal order.
Assad and Putin.
But the problem is that although Russia and Iran can guarantee that Assad will not fall, they cannot help it defeat the Sunni forces supported by Turkey and the Kurdish forces supported by the United States, so the situation in Syria has been stalemate to this day. In 2021, Assad was once again elected to Syria with 95% of the vote, which changed the minds of many oil-rich Arab countries.
Syrian Kurdish Women's Army.
Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have begun to truly regard Syria as their own, otherwise it will only make Turkey and Iran take advantage, and Syria's return to the Arab League can be regarded as being re-accepted by the Arab world. However, Assad ** is only a piece of paper**, the more than 300 billion US dollars needed for reconstruction will definitely not be scraped up, and the opposition at home and the interference forces of major powers outside China cannot be completely eliminated, when the whole world turns away, Syria is still in hell.
Syrian refugees.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Russia, the United States, and other forces are involved, and now Syria has completely reduced to a country that lives on Russian military aid and Iranian economic aid, and the US military has lost as much as $27 billion in oil theft, and Syria dares not speak out.
The war in Syria has caused more than 8 million refugees, which is not only a headache for Syria, but also a source of fear for the European Union.
Syrian Kurdish forces.
In the Syrian war, a city has changed hands several times, in the morning it is controlled by the armed forces, and in the afternoon it may become the first army, and all forces attack the city and seize the landAll the costs must be borne by the Syrian people. JointUN Secretary-General Guterres said"The catastrophe in Syria, with which no country in modern times can be compared".
Kurdish snipers in Aleppo in 2018.
The United States would love to see such a chaotic Syria because it could drag Russia into a quagmire;Iran is also happy to do so, because Syria allows it to expand its power westwardTurkey is in its own interest to maintain a military presence in Syria, although it is not skilled;Both the Kurds and the opposition forces are satisfied, after all, their own forces are also being replenished by the warAt the same time, Assad is nothing more than a family regime, and the interests of the Assad family are above those of Syria.
The "Statue of Liberty" made by the Syrians out of ruins
Only the Syrian people are still in hell.