Civilians look through the rubble in Aleppo. Time/Reuters
2014 was the worst year in the Syrian Civil war with more then 76,000 people dying in the conflict. Time. 17,790 of those deaths were civilians and 3,501 were children, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. The war has killed at least 200,000 people since the start of the conflict in 2011. Of the 76,000 dead, 15,000 were from secular rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army while 17,000 were from Islamic groups like ISIS and the Al-Nusra front. 26210 regime troops died as well. Many of the deaths were caused by the ISIS offensive.
My Comment:
It was indeed a terrible year for Syria. The ISIS offensive is the main cause for the huge increase in deaths and casualties in Syria. The original battles between the Syrian regime and the various rebel groups were bad enough, but with ISIS fighting as well the situation went from bad to worse. I don't see it getting any better either. The secular groups are being slowly but surely wiped out, so soon it will just be the regime versus the various radical Islamic groups. If ISIS or the other Islamic groups win then we will see even more death and destruction and the likely extermination of non-Sunni groups, like Shia, Christian, Alwatie and Druse. If the regime wins then the whole war will have been rendered pointless.
Someone once said "what if they threw a war and nobody came?" Well Syria is the war that everyone came too. There are so many factions and interests either fighting in the conflict or supporting people that are. It is very hard to find out who the good guys are and, indeed, if there are any good guys left. So much blood has been shed and so much hatred unleashed that I don't see a peaceful solution for the war. In fact the only way I see to end the war is for one side or the other to wipe out all the others. Since that is very unlikely to happen, I predict that the war will continue indefinitely. 2015 is going to be just as bad as 2014 was. Maybe even worse...
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