The Syrian uprising has claimed more than 80,000 lives and displaced millions of people. Its nature is increasingly becoming sectarian with international voices seeming to ally with one side or the other. Despite the peaceful protests that began in March 2011 by the Syrian people, the media and other key players who want to divide Muslims, have played the sectarian card very successfully.
With the fighting and eventual fall of the strategic town of Qusayr, commentators have emphasized on the sectarian nature of the fight with the Shiite elements with Assad and the Sunni factions with the opposition fighters. Unfortunately, all of us have forgotten about the number of innocent civilians that have died and continue to be maimed. We are forgetting that regardless of whether one is a Shiite or a Sunni, it is inexcusable to kill an innocent individual and mutilate the body of a dead person.
The conflict has a lot of foreign fighters and the world should condemn all foreign intervention that destabilizes the embattled country and arbitrarily claims countless innocent lives. Be it Hezbollah or the Al-Nusra Front, the world should have no tolerance for terrorism.
This is not the time to condemn Shiites or Sunnis for their role in Syria. Terrorism has no religion and the world and Muslims should unite to defeat all terrorists regardless of which side of the conflict they are in. We should not allow players with vested interests in the conflict to widen the divisions among the Muslims. This division will only benefit the enemies of Islam who seek to destroy the Muslim community by creating differences. We need to hold hands and show a united front to the evil forces of the world. - Naqi Rizvi, Riyadh