The Syrian rebels are the civilians. Yeah, there are some small extremist groups, but the vast majority of them are just civilians who are taking up arms against the oppressive regime. The regime/military are mostly Alawhite, which is a minority ethnicity/religion, and they feel like if they give up their power, they will be persecuted so that is why they are trying to stay in power. http://video.pbs.org/video/2364993210/

[quote]Yeah, there are some small extremist groups[/quote]I wouldn't necessarily call al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Muhajireen Brigades, Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, Fatah al-Islam, and numerous, numerous, others "small". While they are still the minority when compared to the overall opposition, their numbers are growing steadily. I've seen reports of around 25% of the FSA (which is an umbrella organization) defecting to al-Nusra. If I can find a link, I'll post it.

Yeah, but the last thing the Syrian people want is for one of those extremist groups to get into power. NATO nations are torn between arming the rebels and helping them overthrow the regime and possibly arming the wrong rebels. Both the extremists and the rebels want Assad out, but that is where their similarities end.

Exactly. Which is why the situation is complex. Then add in foreign intervention by both nations and mujahedeen, confusion among who is in charge of the opposition, confusion about chemical weapon attacks, sectarianism, Kurdish conflict in this war, and about a dozen other things and this is the most -blam!-ed up situation, dude.

Agreed I've taken tons of classes on Islam and the Middle East in college. It literally changes so much and the situations are so complex that the classes end up being all about current events than whatever the teacher originally had on the syllabus. I have a lot more documentary links from my classes on the Middle East (including a HBO one where the writer/director was shot by an Israeli mercenary in the West Bank during the filming of it) if you want some of them. The more you learn about the current events, the more you lose faith in humanity that people let their faith/ethnic prejudices cloud their judgement this much and use it as an excuse to attack/kill people based on their beliefs.