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Experts: Bloodbath Could Follow Overthrow of Assad in Syria

(Jerusalem Post) Yaakov Lappin - Syria's diverse population - made up of Sunni Muslims, Druse, Kurds and other groups, who are ruled by the minority Alawites - could, upon the collapse of the Assad regime, turn on each other in a bloody civil conflict. "I think there would be a bloodbath if Assad falls," said Eyal Zisser, a professor of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Mordechai Kedar, of Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said Syria could split up into smaller states following the collapse of the Assad regime. In such a scenario, "many Muslims will chase Alawites with knives - who would in turn have to flee to the Ansariya mountains in western Syria, their traditional lands." "Syria could be divided into six parts: an Alawite state in the west; a Kurdish state in the north, as in Iraq; a Druse state in the south; and a Bedouin state in the east, in the Dir al-Zur region. A Sunni Muslim state in Damascus and another in Aleppo could also rise."
2011-04-21 00:00:00
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