We forget about the sheer barbarity of the Assad regime. This is what happens when you mislabel this as 'conflict', deaths become numbers. The Assad regime doesn'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'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 'war' 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.