Putin’s Syrian strategy
11/07/2017 In March 2011, inflamed by the popular uprisings then spreading across the Middle East, 15 boys from a Syrian village scrawled on a wall some graffiti in support of the so-called Arab Spring. They were arrested by Syrian security forces and brutally tortured. One of them, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb, was killed. Protests erupted across the country. The response by President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces was to kill hundreds of demonstrators and imprison many more. Opposition to Assad hardened, and in July defectors within the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a rebel group dedicated to overthrowing …