Syria's war within

The Syrian conflict is approaching its second anniversary landmark. The rebellion against Bashar al-Assad's regime has since turned into a war that is destroying the country. Close to a million people have been killed so far and tens of thousands are reported to be missing.

Over the past month, an estimated 5,000 Syrians have fled across Syria's borders on a daily basis. The situation in the bordering countries is getting very tense and Turkey has begun denying access to incoming refugees. To make matters worse, a car bomb exploded outside a Turkish border control in early February, killing a dozen people.

As a result of border tensions, the exhaustion of personal savings and the rebels' recent successes in pushing back the regime's army from areas mainly in the Idlib region, tens of thousands of refugees have returned to Syria. Although some towns are slowly repopulating, the number of internally displaced people is increasing dramatically.

Some recently liberated towns in the northern region of Idlib have seen a return to daily activities. The withdrawal of the Syrian army from the towns and the absence of shelling over the past month has been enough of a stimulus for citizens to reopen stores, markets, schools and offices. The urge for a sense of normality is an attempt to exorcize the threats of the brutal conflict.

The lack of a unified opposition has led many locally recognized or self-elected leaders to take control of the administration and security in the towns and villages liberated over the past months in Northern Syria. Community leaders have called for a ban on carrying arms in the streets. However many families reject the ban, saying that the security of their homes is a personal matter.

Pro-Assad forces continue to employ warplanes, Scud ballistic missiles and artillery to attack the insurgents in cities and rebel-controlled areas. The FSA (Free Syrian Army) has nonetheless increased its offensive power on the ground. In the Idlib region, rebel units, including scores of teenage boys, exert different levels of control over towns and villages.

The FSA has been unable to set up a centralized command structure to control and lead the disparate rebel groups. As a result, local commanders draft units of men and arm them by whatever means possible to fight isolated battles in their own town or village.

Over the past month, a number of rebel-held towns have set up local councils in an attempt to establish a fledgling form of self-government. The new councils are also intended to offset the increasing power that rebel brigades, including Islamist-led groups, are staking over territory and resources. The local councils' short-term goal is to secure basic supplies for its citizens.

The awareness that an airstrike, missile attack or artillery shelling can destabilize all efforts to return to a sense of normalcy is ever present in the handful of rebel-held towns in the Idlib region. Nonetheless, the residents of the poverty-stricken villages prefer a life closer to home, even a perilous one, than to settle for an even more squalid existence across one of the borders.

Most of the victims in the two-year long conflict are civilians. Approximately 100 to 200 people die every day. The number of internally displaced has risen to an estimated three million with diseases, infections and malnutrition rife across the country. International efforts to set up makeshift hospitals and provide medical aid have so far failed to cope with the humanitarian emergency.

Most of the aid Syrian residents and IDP's are able to count on comes from Western-sponsored organizations, exiled opposition members, private citizens living abroad and several international NGO's. As little as a bunch of blankets can go a long way in relieving some of the misery for families living in shelters waiting to return to homes that may no longer be standing.

Many Syrians wonder why the West hasn't intervened in a more determined way to end the bloodshed. Critics say fears that a hardline Islamist-led regime will take over power are not a sufficient argument for non-intervention. The revolutionary spark has fizzled out and the Syrian people feel let down and abandoned by the rest of the world.