Syrian Shiites take up arms in support of Assad's army
Syria's tiny Shiite community is taking greater steps toward arming itself as the civil war grinds on.
In the four years since the start of the civil war in Syria, Shiite groups have been fighting militant Salafists alongside the Syrian army. The most prominent of these groups is the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, whose presence has had a direct impact on developments on the ground in Syria.
Recently, however, another Shiite group in Syria has caught the media’s attention. Quwat al-Ridha has stepped into the limelight because unlike other Shiite militias, whose ranks are made up of people coming in from abroad, members of this group belong to Syria’s small Shiite community.
