While the death toll in the trenches of Western Europe were close to 2 — Syria

"Oh people of Free Syria, building the homeland is the responsibility of all of us, and this is a call to all Syrians to participate in building a new homeland, in which there is rule through justice and consultation."

"Syria, using the term in its old, geographical sense, occupies a unique place in the annals of the world. Especially because of the inclusion of Palestine and Phoenicia within its ancient boundaries, it has made a more significant contribution to the moral and spiritual progress of mankind than any other comparable land. Small as it appears on a map or a globe, its historical importance is boundless, its influence universal."

"I must also confess that I have always been fascinated by the history of your great nation. Often referred to, as the Cradle of Civilisation and the Gateway to History, Syria is not an alien country to Malaysians. For the Muslims, the history of Syria is written into our text books as we studied about the history of Islam and its great civilisation during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), his Sahabah like Sayyidina Abu Bakar, Omar, Othman and Ali as well as many other great Muslim leaders and warriors including Khalid ibn Walid, Nur al Deen and Salahuddin Al Ayubbi who struggled to spread the message of Islam or defended the religion against the Crusaders."

"Syria is a melting pot. It existed like this, like it is today because it is a melting pot with multifarious cultures for centuries, before Christianity and after Christianity, before Islam and after Islam. If you have any change, dramatic change, in the demographic and social fabric of the Syrian society, youre going to have a big problem in the future regarding the future of Syria."

"Few who watched the Syrian revolution rise and unfold thought back to 1979, but the echoes would be obvious in hindsight—except everything was worse, as though all the players picked up where they had left off after the jihad in Afghanistan, or the Iran-Iraq War, or the 2003 Iraq War. The son of Sa’id Hawwa, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, was involved; Surur, author of the Magi book, was playing a key role rallying the Islamists; even the son of Arif Hussaini, the assassinated Pakistani allama, would show up in Damascus to meet Shia fighters. With appetites sharpened, everyone returned to the battle with renewed vengeance. There would be rivers of blood, millions displaced, millions of refugees. The war in Syria would break the Middle East. It would break the world. But first, it would destroy the lives of men like Yassin. In the fluid chaos of the revolution, he couldn’t know all the details about the forces lurking in the background. He focused on the possibilities, on the Syrianness of the revolution and the goodness in Syrians’ hearts; on the belief in the righteousness of their cause and their call for basic freedoms."

"Since 1961, Syria has been ruled by the Baath Party, the same party that ruled Iraq until the fall of Saddam Hussein. Bashar al-Assad inherited the leadership of Syria from his father Hafiz al-Assad, in 2000. Bashar is the balancing point among the various Syrian power forces, including the military, the intelligence service, the nations ruling party, and the government bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the people of Syria are not free to express their political opinions, much less choose their leaders."