The planned intervention by the United States and France in strife-torn Syria has evoked a mixed response from expatriates living in Riyadh.
Iyad Al-Shaikh, a 27-year-old Syrian expatriate working in the media, said he supports the planned intervention from the Western countries. “I support US and France’s willingness to help the Syrians, but they should have done it earlier. If they had done that, they could have prevented the huge casualties in our country,” Al-Shaikh told Arab News.
Another Syrian said the West should not intervene in Syria because it is a local problem which should be solved internally. Ali Al-Turk, a Turkish expatriate working as a sales team supervisor in Al-Khaleejiah, echoed similar sentiment.
“The West should not be hasty in taking action since we are still unsure as to whether the Syrian government was responsible for launching the chemical attack that killed scores of innocent people,” Al-Turk told Arab News. “It might be a ploy by the enemies of the Syrian government to make them look bad in the public eye,” he added.
For some expatriates, the event that triggered the West’s concern toward Syria was the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government against the rebels, which killed innocent people, especially children.
Al-Turk said: “Television footage showing images and videos of victims of alleged chemical bombing by the Assad government has inflamed public sentiment.”
“Of course, we do not know whether or not the Assad government was responsible for the chemical attack, but Syria’s Western allies took the decision to intervene following the attacks,” he added.
Other expatriates said that the US and France should intervene peacefully by either disarming both sides or taking to the negotiation table to ensure peace.
Syrian expatriates in the Kingdom are hoping that their allies will also help them in restoring normalcy in Syria as soon as the conflict ends. “I still believe that there is hope for Syria. I just hope that other countries can also provide us with aid following the civil war,” Al-Shaikh said.
The Syrian civil war had its origins in the conflict between the loyalists of the Ba’ath government and opposition members. It began as protests in March 2011 and has been escalating since then. In July 2011, Syrian soldiers launched a coup d’etat and formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which later on became the main opposition. The conflict further escalated, which eventually caught the eyes of the Western superpowers.
Expats divided over West’s planned Syria intervention
