Syrian refugees’ reactions mixed to airstrikes against Islamic State

Syria’s civil war has no end in sight

Ask Syrian refugees sheltering in neighbouring Jordan about the advent of US-led strikes against Islamic State militants in their homeland, and the reactions will be mixed.

Some welcome the surprise military intervention, saying it could lead to ending the nearly 4-year-old war in Syria and diminish the power of Islamic State fighters and other terrorist groups operating in the country.

"We guarantee that the war would come to a close in Syria with such involvement led by the American military," said a Syrian refugee woman, Maysoon, while cradling her 2-year-old daughter. The toddler was born in the Jordanian capital soon after she and her family fled the spiralling violence in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Maysoon and some other refugees, all of whom asked to be identified without their full names, blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad for turning a "blind eye" to infiltration over the border by foreign militants who make up some of the membership of Islamic State and other extremists. The Islamists have clashed with both secular opposition fighters seeking to topple Assad as well as regime troops loyal to Assad.

"Assad was behind terrorists coming into Syria," Maysoon alleged. "He opened the borders and allowed these extremists to bring death and destruction into our country."

Intervention

However, a Sunni Muslim woman, Samar, and other refugees expressed concerns that the US-led intervention could "further complicate Syria's bloody civil war and lead to more chaos."

"We are also concerned that innocent civilians will once again become victims as a result of the airstrikes," said her friend, Sawsan.

"The injustice of the Assad regime helped to give birth to extremism and this has, in turn, weakened the country's moderate voice, making ordinary Syrians the losers," Samar said, shaking her head.

Syria's civil war has no end in sight. It has created more than 3 million refugees sheltering in neighboring countries, such as Jordan, and displaced more than 6.5 million within Syria.