This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9

A photo a day from the Syrian civil war

This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9 This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9

Uncategorized September 29, 2013

Free Syrian Army photo This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9 A photo a day from the Syrian civil war by... This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9
Free Syrian Army photo

This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #9

A photo a day from the Syrian civil war

by DAVID AXE

Thirty months. More than 100,000 dead. Millions displaced. The Syrian civil war is by far the bloodiest war in all the world today—and it could only get worse as the political, economic, humanitarian and sectarian crises it has spawned spill into neighboring countries.

It was more or less a two-way war at first, pitting the regime of Pres. Bashar Al Assad versus the scrappy rebel battalions of the Free Syrian Army. As the death toll mounted the revolution became more radicalized. The Islamic States of Iraq and Syria, a hardline militant group opposed to the Syrian regime, gained a toehold in rebel-controlled territory and, in mid-September 2013, also declared war on the mainline FSA. Now the civil war was a three-way fight.

The FSA, meanwhile, was splintering. A few days following the ISIS declaration, the more militant rebel brigades announced a split from the FSA and appeared to position themselves as the less extreme Islamic alternative to ISIS. The fighting was split four ways.

And at the same time the FSA found itself fighting the militia of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, a longtime client of the Syrian regime that is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the U.S. Besides being generally pro-Syrian, the PKK seems to view the civil war as an opportunity to establish a Kurdish foothold in the new Syria. It’s opposed by a rival Kurdish party and also by the FSA. A rebel brigade gave us this image of its fighters in a running gun battle with Kurdish troops.

If it sounds confusing, it’s because it is.

In any event, the Syrian rebels respect the Kurds’ fighting ability. “The PKK resistance is more hostile than the regime because the regime is exhausted,” says rebel fighter Moustafa Abo Zyed.

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