Syria is in a state of civil war. In the last eighteen months what started as a homegrown peaceful protest against the regime of Bashar al-Assad has morphed into an ugly and increasingly secterian conflict, confronting against each other the complex patchwork of sects, religions, and ethnicities that exist in Syria.

In the summer of 2012 the war entered a new phase after the rebel Free Syrian Army successfully orchestrated the bombing assassination of key members of Assad's war council, followed by major rebel offensives in the cities of Aleppo and the Syrian capital Damascus.

By late july the...