Mass Protests against Syrian Tyranny

There have been mass protests in the south of Syria for weeks, in a predominantly Druze area that has been mostly peaceful during the Syrian Civil War. The protests are the first significant ones in Syria since last year. At first, the demonstrations were against inflation, but now also are about ending the tyrannical Baathist regime of Bashar Assad. There have also been some isolated protests elsewhere in the majority Muslim Arab State. Syria has been in civil war since 2011, which has killed over half a million people, displaced 12 of the 25 million Syrians, including 5 million who fled Syria. The Islamist Republic of Iran and its terrorist allies and the Russian Federation back Assad in the multi-sided war that includes both moderate and Islamist rebels. Some rebels are backed by Turkey while the United States supports the Syrian Democratic Force, which is made of Kurds and some others. The SDF has been fighting against the Islamic State, the offshoot of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the deadliest attacks in history, the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks against America that killed nearly 3,000. The U.S. led an international coalition that defeated the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and maintains a small force to complete the destruction of the bloody terrorist organization. The Kurds remain outside the control of Assad, as do a few other rebels. Meanwhile, Israel continues to strike Iranian and Iranian-backed terrorist targets in Syria.