Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the ongoing war in Syria, which is being backed by Western forces.

Nato backed rebels have already been implicated in chemical weapons attacks on the Syrian population, but despite this, both the UK and US governments have indicated their desire to arm the rebels.

These rebels have not only been involved in launching chemical weapons against an unarmed civilian population, they have also made use of another, particularly insidious weapon: rape. Thousands of women have been kidnapped and taken to detention centres where they are stripped naked in front of other women and gang-raped – with the others forced to watch, knowing that it would be their turn next.

This kind of brutality is not just committed by the rebels however, soldiers working on behalf of Assad’s army have also been implicated in this brutality committed against women.

One woman, Alma Abdulrahman was left paralysed from the waist down after such an attack and was one of the few women to speak about her experiences.

She described the level of torture at the hands of the military who also broke part of her spine and her neckbone. During her ordeal, she was injected repeatedly with an unknown drug and beaten with barbed wire.

She said that the ‘men’ were told by their commanding officer:”“They were ordered to take this one, to take ‘your portion.”

Her full story is documented on the Women Under Seige website.

Alma Abdulrahman was the victim of a vicious sexual assault during the Syrian conflict. She is subsequently paralysed from the waist down

This is just one of the measures of brutality being waged against the population of Syria and is sadly one of the common occurrences in in modern day warfare to drive terror into a population.

But is there more to the war in Syria than we are being told and does this have the potential to escalate into a world war?

Our research has uncovered some disturbing trends. In order to understand these, it is necessary to look into the context of the current situation, and the Western interests that are serving to fuel the conflicts in the country.

One important thing to note is that Syria is a close ally of Iran and in 2005 they declared that they had a mutual defence pact, so if one was attacked, the other would intervene.

A similar pact exists between Israel and the US. On April 17th of this year, the US senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to endorse resolution 65 which said the US will firmly back Israel militarily and financially should it attack Iran.

 The resolution states: “If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with United States law and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.”

Here’s the problem: Israel has already indicated its desire to attack Syria. In May of this year, it was reported that Israel launched a series of missile attacks on a Syrian military installation.

This was the second Israeli airstrike in the country in two days and the third this year. Recently, it has ramped up the rhetoric against Syria, warning Syrian combatants not to attack Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Syrian soldiers: “We are not seeking to challenge anyone, but no one will harm the State of Israel without a response – a strong and resolute response.”

Israel has also stated openly that it has the “moral” authority to attack Iran. In May, two senior Israeli defense analysts outlined why they believed Israel would be “justified” in launching attacks on the country.

Amos Yadlin, director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and former Military Intelligence chief, and Gen. James Cartwright, holder of the Harold Brown Chair in Defense Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued that Iran’s nuclear defense program gave them the authority to launch strikes in the country.

Last year, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak warned that if sanctions against Iran’s nuclear weapons programme failed, Israel would launch “preemptive” strikes against it.

So why is Israel, along with the US so interested in Syria? One of the reasons could be that Syria is in many ways a gateway to Iran.

If an attack on Syria were to go ahead, then because of the joint pact between itself and Iran, both countries would get involved in the war.

It is also worth noting that Iran is sitting on the third largest oil reserves in the world and has consistently failed to allow the US to control their resources.

 In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger was once quoted as saying: “If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.”

Recently, the Obama administration warned that the US may take military action against Syria due to reports that the Syrian government under the leadership of Bashar Hafez al-Assad, had used chemical weapons on its own people.

He said that the US was “sure” that the Syrian government had used these weapons against its own people and thus crossed Washington’s “red line”.
They claimed that the nerve gas Sarin was used by Assad in an attempt to force the rebels out – although they acknowledged that the evidence for such use may be “difficult to come by”.

MPs in the UK are currently in the process of voting whether to arm the Syrian rebels as a consequence.

However, recently it was reported that it may indeed have been the other way around. Carla Del Ponte, former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals said that testimony from victims in the conflict, suggest it was the rebels that had used the nerve gas, although this has not been proved “conclusively”.

Furthermore, leaked documents from a UK-based defense contractor has revealed a Qatari proposal to the firm to frame Syria for the chemical attacks, which were apparently approved by Washington.

 The document was allegedly hacked from the UK-based company Britam Defence’s website and featured an email exchange between two senior officials at Britam which revealed plans to smuggle chemical warheads and rockets from Libya to the Syrian city of Homs.

Part of the leaked email read: “We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.”

The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals. The reports were originally released by Cyber War News which included slideshows of the leaked documents.

Even more considering is the warnings by both Russia and China who warned that a regional thermonuclear war could result if the West intervened, and potentially drag India, Pakistan as well as Israel, Iran and Syria.

In a conference held in St Petersburg, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was reported as saying: “Hasty military operations in foreign states usually bring radicals to power.

“At some point such actions which undermine state sovereignty may lead to a full-scale regional war, even, although I do not want to frighten anyone, with the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone should bear this in mind.”

But this in itself is inaccurate and downplays the nature of the threat facing us. If Israel are involved with a nuclear war with Iran and Syria, then because of the pact made under resolution 65, it is highly likely that the USA will get involved, bringing along with it all of its Western allies.

But war is not inevitable and can only go ahead if the majority of people choose to do nothing.

Edmund Burke, put it best when he declared: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Read part two of this feature to find out what options are open to the ordinary man and woman caught in the crossfire of these increasingly burgeoning conflicts.

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