Syria's Evolving Uprising

The evolving uprising in Syria.  Who’s fighting?  For what?  Who’s sending in arms?  Who’s dying?  We focus on Syria.

The uprising, the civil war, in Syria is hard to watch. Maybe 30,000-plus dead. Hundreds of thousands of refugees. A brutal, frightened regime cracking down with heavy weapons and air power on rifle-armed rebels and civilians in the streets. But watch is what the world has mainly done.

The U.S., afraid of another war in the Mideast. But nothing has gone away or gotten simpler. Turkey now on edge. Anti-Assad fighters feeling angry and abandoned. Arms going to jihadis. Syria, a flash point in the presidential race.

This hour, On Point: the fight in Syria, and where it’s going.
-Tom Ashbrook

Amr Al Azm, professor of history at Shawnee State University, member of the Syrian opposition, executive committee member of the United States Institute of Peace's Day After Project.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, correspondent for the Guardian covering the fighting in Syria. You can catch his recent report for Frontline here.

Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

CNN "Syria denied Monday a report that its forces have been using cluster bombs in its civil war. 'The General Command of the Army and the Armed Forces stressed on Monday that the misleading media outlets have recently published untrue news claiming the Syrian Arab Army has been using cluster bombs against terrorists,' the government's term for rebels, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported."

The Hill "As Lamees’s father explained to us, Syrian children are experiencing real psychological trauma, and will need extensive help. Psychosocial services for Syrian refugees – meaning not just therapy, but also safe spaces to play and activities to take their minds off the war – are relatively scarce right now. Large numbers of Syrian children are not in school in their host countries, nor are they receiving mental health services in the key early stages of trauma."

Reuters "International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi appealed to Iran to help arrange a ceasefire in Syria during the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha as rebels and government forces fought street by street and village by village on Monday."