Overview of Syria

It would be important to have a little bit of knowledge on Syria before talking about the conflict itself. Syria is located in Western Asia, it's neighbouring countries are Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, Israel to the southwest and finally Lebanon to the west. It had an estimated population of 23 million before the conflict started in 2011.

Syria is home to many ethnic groups. The majority of its population are Arabs, but there are also Kurds, Armenian, Turkmen and others. Most of these are Sunni Muslim but there are also people following other branches of Islam like the Alawites, Shia and Ismaili. This big diversity is whats making this conflict so complicated because some of these groups don't really like each other.

The current president of Syria is Bashar al-Assad, who came to power in 2000 after his father, the last president, died. This man had taken power of the country in a coup d'état in 1971 and installed a non-democratic government where there are no elections and citizens are given close to no rights.