What do they have in common? They are targets of Assad.

In Syria the people are being killed at a rate of a thousand a week. Aleppo, a World Heritage Site and it's over 8,000 years of history is being bombed into rubbish. All the while, the FSA is getting that much closer to Damascus and Assad. The FSA have spokesmen and women in the capital. His military bases are falling faster than we can count these days. Finally it is really beginning to look like it is only a matter of time before Assad and his murderous regime begin to flee, or are caught and meet their fate.

Like the rest of the world, I have lost track of the number killed. I know it is around 40,000 with many more missing. More than 2.5 million have been displaced within Syria itself. About 500,000 refugees are in camps in the surrounding frontline states of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The ICRC and the UN are lost in the quagmire in their attempt to help those civilians needing urgent relief. The Red Cross has said over a month ago that they can't cope with the situation. The UN gave up counting the dead over a year ago. Syria is dying in painful slow motion and the world never really did come to their aid. Yet the people are doing it on their own, like they have from the beginning.

Over the course of the conflict, Assad's air force has bombed bakeries, playgrounds, schools, hospitals and now olive pressing factories. Ten children were killed earlier this week when the playground they were being children in was bombed with a cluster bomb. Last week, the last hospital in FSA held neighborhoods in Aleppo was destroyed by a Syrian air force bomb as well. Forty were killed. Today his air force bombed the olive pressing factory killing dozens more.

As Assad loses his grip on most of Syria, his minority sect has consolidated it's hold on the Latakia Governorate. This is where Assad and his henchmen will run to. I believe it is Assad'sdesire to make it his "rump republic." The city of Latakia has escaped most of the violence that has wracked the rest of the country these past two years. It is the 5th largest city and has a population of over 350,00. The fear is he will use his chemical weapons as he becomes more desperate. In his twisted mind he nothing to lose by doing so.