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 The Syrian Crisis emerged from the Syrian conflict. There was originally a dictator named Bashar Al-Assad who fired at his people who were peacefully demonstrating against the dictatorship during Arab Spring demonstrations. The people begin to fight back and create the Free Syrian Army, a group of armed rebels. Now there is a Civil War. Since there is a vacuum of power, jihadists flocked to Syria and joined the civil war. Jihadists are defined as individuals part of a Islamist military movement that is perceived as a risk to the West. Jihadists are mainly very extreme, and can be seen through terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, and Hezbollah. The terrorists going to join the rebels makes it hard for foreign powers to support them. The Kurds, an ethnic group of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq also take the opportunity of the conflict to carve out their own territory. The conflict worsens, and the war becomes a proxy war between Iran and the rich gulf states like UAE and Saudi Arabia. Turkey also helps Saudi Arabia. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the other gulf countries don’t join the Kurds because the Kurds are perceived as a  threat towards Turkey since they might take some land. Hezbollah, the terrorist militia of Lebanon (backed by Iran) heads to Syria to help Assad as well. To counter Hezbollah joining the conflict, Saudi Arabia steps up their aid to the rebels (and extremists), and Jordan also helps the rebels. The conflict gets divided between Shias and Sunni Muslims. The US joins the fight, and helps to train rebels while trying  to get Gulf states to stop funding of extremists. The conflict really intensifies when Assad uses chemical weapons against civilians. This exacerbates the conflict between Russia  (Putin) and the USA (Obama). The war takes a turn for the worst after an Al-Qaeda affiliate breaks away to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is established as an enemy of Al-Qaeda, rebels, the US and Kurds. They begin taking over land in Iraq and Syria. The USA begins to bomb ISIS while backing down from Assad. After the Pentagon starts to train rebels that only fight  ISIS not Assad, but the program is useless.  Now the USA opposes ISIS more than Assad, but they really don't have a grip on anything. Even Though Kurds are leading the fight against ISIS in the North, they are starting to be bombed by Turkey. Turkey doesn’t bomb ISIS at all getting the US confused. These confusing alliances only worsen the conflict since each  country has different priorities. Saudi Arabia is focused on the proxy war and beating Iran. Turkey is focused on quenching rebellion with the Kurds. The USA is focused on ISIS. Now Russia gets involved and supports Assad. Now that Trump is elected, he allows Assad to take power. Trump doesn't want to be in Syria, and really forgets about Assad’s atrocities. Once Assad starts attacking civilians with chemical weapons, Trump intervenes and begins directly bombing Syrian air bases. Not to mention Aleppo, the last rebel stronghold, is taken after a siege and Russian airstrikes. Women killed themselves, so they wouldn't be raped by Assad’s forces. Assad’s armies also committed atrocities against the people when they entered the city killing everyone on the destroyed  streets of rubble. This conflict has left millions (6 million as refugees and 6 million displaced inside of Syria)  without homes. The millions and millions of people displaced by the conflict are in need of basic things to survive like food, clean water, and shelter. We can help this conflict by donating to organizations that provide humanitarian aid. We can also help by giving kids an education mainly girls that are seen as inferior to sons.