Sorting the Dead in Syria

The Syrian multi-war casualties clearly show that a large part of the war was a civil war in contrast to the Iraq War, which was a counter-insurgency.

While I have earlier seen reports of half a million dead, I never know how authoritative the counts are. This count calls the total 365,000 dead.

By category, civilians count for almost 111,000 of the dead. I assume most were killed by government forces.

62,000 Syrian military personnel killed.

62,000 Syrian and foreign militia members killed, including 1,665 Hezbollah fighters.

64,000 jihadis and Islamists.

And 65,000 non-jihadist rebels, soldiers who defected, and Kurdish forces.

In contrast to Iraq where most of the dead were civilians, indicating a war among civilians, "only" less than a third of the casualties in Syria have been civilians. To me this indicates front lines , behind which civilians were not directly attacked. If not for Assad's policy of bombing civilians to drive rebel supporters into exile, the toll would be far less.

The death toll among the forces fighting on the government side is astounding. No wonder their morale is shaky. Despite air and fire support, pro-government casualties have been about the same as rebels and jihadis.

Which means the pro-government forces aren't that good. If the government versus rebel civil war evolves into an insurgency, the government forces will be sorely tested in a more complicated role.