April 28, 2014: The Syrian civil war is entering its fourth year. So far over 150,000 have died. That’s a conservative estimate and the actual deaths may be 30-50 percent higher. Some 34 percent of the deaths so far have been civilians, 39 percent were pro-government forces and 27 percent were rebel fighters. While only two percent of the pro-government forces were foreigners (mainly Hezbollah from Lebanon and Iranians) while 29 percent of the rebel dead were. Most of these foreign rebels were from Iraq and other Arab countries. Most of the foreign rebel dead belonged to Islamic terrorist groups, especially the Iraqi dominated ISIL. Actually about ten percent of the rebel dead were lost during fighting between ISIL and the rest of the rebels (both secular and Islamic). That has been going on since January.

In addition over 50,000 people are captives or missing. Many of these are released, often after “vigorous interrogation” (torture), a common practice throughout the region. Another big source of unreported or underreported deaths is the rapidly growing murder rate. The economy is wrecked and many people are either destitute or cut off from regular supplies of food and other goods. This has resulted in more crime, which means more murder or vigilante justice for known criminals. Many of these crimes will never be reported. The deaths while in detention are often not recorded, especially now that the UN War Crimes bureaucrats are talking about prosecutions against the guilty inside Syria.