Inside War-Torn Syria: Who Is Still There?

With guest host Jane Clayson.

A deep look inside Syria: Russia’s military steps up. Hundreds of thousands of migrants flee: who’s leaving? Who’s staying?

Hundreds and thousands of migrants have flooded into Europe this year, the worst refugee crisis since World War II — risking it all, packed onto rafts at sea, in the backs of trucks and trains. Syrians — fleeing a brutal civil war — are half of the European migrants. And there are four million more — living in Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey. They witnessed the deaths of family and neighbors. They abandoned their bombed-out towns —Aleppo, Homs, Daraa. And the war rages on, with no end in sight. Russia, Iran holding up the faltering Assad regime. The US bombing ISIS and training moderate rebels.  This hour, On Point, the bloody Syria Civil War, its refugees, and the world.
-- Jane Clayson

Liz Sly, Beirut bureau chief for the Washington Post. (@LizSly)

Noah Bonsey, senior Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group. (@NoahBonsey)

Andrew Tabler, Martin J. Gross Fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (@Andrewtabler)

Washington Post: 'Syria is Emptying' — "A new exodus of Syrians is fueling the extraordinary flow of migrants and refugees to Europe, as Syria’s four-year-old war becomes the driving force behind the greatest migration of people to the continent since the Second World War. Syrians account for half of the 381,000 refugees and migrants who have sought asylum in Europe so far this year, which is in turn almost a doubling of the number in 2014 — making Syrians the main component of the influx."

The Wall Street Journal: Russian Military Buildup in Syria Concerns U.S. Officials — "Russian forces have delivered half a dozen tanks to an airfield in Syria, the strongest indication yet that Moscow is preparing to transform the strategic coastal compound into a new military hub to help President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials said. Over the weekend, American officials said, six T-90 Russian tanks arrived at an airfield south of the Syrian port city of Latakia, where Russia’s military has embarked on an intensive buildup."

Foreign Affairs: The New Great Game -- "Just two weeks ago, the first 54 graduates of Washington’s trumpeted program to train and equip the Syrian opposition crossed from Turkey into Syria. They were immediately attacked by al Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, which killed and captured a number of the trainees. The media and Congress rightfully focused on the inauspicious start to a program conceived well over a year ago, but lost in the shuffle was the fact that the unit’s commander is a Syrian Turkmen—an ethnic Turk with Syrian citizenship—and that the area through which the unit marched into Syria, the same territory that Turkey now proposes as a safe zone, is dominated by the very same sect."