Today news arrives that the 31 year old father of two Mr Mashudur Choudhry has been convicted of terrorism related offences for going to fight in Syria.

Syria is currently a mess and going to fight there may be a bad idea especially as allegiances of different groups are murky and chances are people you consider on your own side will be trying to kill you for fighting with another group. Or worse you will be forced to work with groups carrying out attrocities and other crime.

However I do not think that it should be a criminal offence for people to go to Syria, even if to fight and any anti terrorism laws that make this a criminal offence are wrong.

...from Monday.

So that they can kill all the men.

#ReadBetweenTheLines

Then again that may be better than them all starving to death.

This week there was meant to be a peace conference to try and solve the syrian situation. There has been much wrangling over who will attend. First the rebels said they wouldn't attend. then they said they would.

Then it transpired that Iran wasnt invited. Then it was. Then it confirmed that it will attend. Then the rebels said that they won't attend. Then the invitation to Iran was withdrawn. Now Assad may decide to withdraw.

Unconnected countries like Mexico are allowed to attend but not Iran...

While this was going on, Qatar, a major backer of regime change in Syria had commissioned a UK agency to prepare a report on attrocities commited by the regime. It decided that today was the right day to release the report (pdf).

It seems that some Syrian clerics have issued a Fatwa allowing people living in besieged suburbs of Damascus to eat meat that is normally forbidden. So now, they may eat cats, dogs and donkeys to starve off hunger.

It's so heartbreaking to hear and shakes my insides to know that this is what is happening to our brothers and sisters half way across the world. The clerics add, that if the situation continues to deteriorate, the living would have to eat the dead.

Ya Allah, help these people, ease their suffering and make them amongst those who enter Jannah. O Allah they are in urgent need of Your Mercies, so send upon them Your Mercies, O Most Merciful. Ameen, thumma Ameen.

I ask you to make a special prayer for Syria tonight. A sincere dua. 

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Hezbollah is a large millitant group mostly based in southern Lebanon with a goal to resist Israel.

It had large popular backing when until around 2000, Israel had occupied southern Lebanon. It got a lot of support from the people on the street, and the governments of Syria and Iran.

It has also been involved in two conflicts with Israel since the Israeli withdrawal, but still enjoyed widespread support as "Legitimate resistance" and also for being a thorn in Israel's side.

The people of Syria supported Hezbollah almost totally, and this was helped by the fact that the regime also supported Hezbollah as its trump card to hit Israel should any hostilities arise with Israel or its allies.

The people of Syria gave them shelter and support.

Consider this a thought experiment.

If Country A wants war with Country B, but also wants to be the righteous party, and suffer the least possible consequences to itself and its allies, how does it go about this?

First, Country B would need to be Isolated. They it will need to be "defanged" in order to control any possible damage to itself. Then the best part - Country B needs to be made desparate enough to be forced to attack first.

No innocent country attacks first. The Defender have the moral highground on their side.

Now let's apply this. Replace "Country A" with "USA" and Country B with Iran.

So far, the Syrian conflict has resulted in a reported 40,000 lives being lost.

There are some estimates that 100,000 lives will be lost over the following year.

Hopefully though the deaths and suffering will be far less than what is expected, and will result in an improvement for the people in Syria, but some of the fighting groups may not please the locals too much.

We need to give greater focus to this (and other conflicts) and not focus just on Palestine (but that also does not mean that the focus on there should be reduced).

It is sometimes easier to focus on other conflicts where Muslims are being oppressed by Non Muslims, but solely focussing on them leaves us open to arguments of bias which belittle out focus on those opressions.