8 - Proxy Wars in Syria

Summary

This chapter discusses and analyses the roles that Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia, and Hamas, a Palestinian militia, played in the Syrian conflict. The fast pace of events in the first year of the conflict, along with the collapse of effective governance in large parts of Syria, created a political vacuum that quickly drew external powers into the Syrian arena. Since the beginning of clashes between the Syrian government and Syrian rebels, vast numbers of militia groups, armed forces, and military experts poured into Syria. These groups represented different agendas, effectively turning Syria into the battlefield of a multi-faceted proxy conflict. Hezbollah and Hamas represent different sets of interests and different stakeholders and consequently had different attitudes towards the crisis, explored in this chapter.