We forget about the sheer barbarity of the Assad regime. This is what happens when you mislabel this as & #39;conflict& #39;, deaths become numbers. The Assad regime doesn& #39;t just kill, it slaughters with knives, it burns with steel, it rapes, it employs most barbaric methods to finish you.

Never forget when we received news that my father& #39;s cousins, all over age of 50, had their homes raided and were slaughtered with knives by the Shabiha. Nor of the day we received news of a relative in Homs, who was burnt alive - there was no corpse for the family to mourn over.

Labelling this a & #39;war& #39; has lead to systematic erasure of brutal crimes committed in earlier years. The fact that we have acronyms/anglicised names for ISIS/JN yet nothing re Shabiha - and even less studies is incredibly telling of the narrative viewing Syria has been forced into.