Original Article Post Date:
Mon, 12/11/2012
The Stakes In ‘The Syrian Civil War’
MONDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2012 05:31 COL. TOM SNODGRASS (RET.)
Some of the past peoples controlling this geographic region over the centuries included Canaanites, Phoenicians, Sumerians, Assyrians, and Hittites. Later, this area, also known as the “Levant,” was conquered and ruled by Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. In 634 A.D., the city of Damascus, which was a major urban center of the Christian Byzantine Empire, wascaptured by a Muslim army dispatched on an imperialistic, jihadist conquest from Arabia by the Rashidun Caliph Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s political and religious successor.