Syria's Alawites pay heavy price for their support for Assad

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Interesting article. Key points are

  1. Assad doesn’t trust the Sunnis in his armed forces so all the actual fighting by government forces is done by Alawites
  2. As a minority community, they don’t have that many men of military age
  3. Their community is thus being devastated because their young men are being wiped our disproportionately. 1/3 of the pre-war population of Alawite men in Syria between the ages of 15 and 35 are now dead.

I guess it’s a good thing Alawites can have 4 wives too, their community will need it after the war at this rate.

In Syria’s war, Alawites pay heavy price for loyalty to Bashar al-Assad - Telegraph
The Alawites, the Assad family’s sect, have seen up to a third of their young men killed in the Syrian conflict and mothers are now refusing to send their sons to war

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Re: Syria’s Alawites pay heavy price for their support for Assad

What did they expect when they decided to fight it out in support of a dictator ? Perhaps if they (the Alawites) had negotiated a settlement with the protestors early on, they and the world could have been spared all this death and destruction.

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Re: Syria’s Alawites pay heavy price for their support for Assad

They deserve it. Their militia was in the forefront of crackdown and massacres early during the uprising/conflict.

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Re: Syria’s Alawites pay heavy price for their support for Assad

I don’t think they have a choice but to support him, if the others win they will literally slaughter all the Alawites anyway just for believing in a slight variation of the religion that they believe in.