"After all the destruction, killing & kidnapping, I prefer Bashar Assad."

"... Christians, one of the largest religious minorities at about 10 percent of Syria's 23 million people, have tried to stay on the sidelines. However, the opposition's increasingly outspoken Islamism has kept many leaning toward the regime."I am not convinced that these people want freedom and democracy," said Fadi, a Christian civil engineer from Damascus, voicing a common view that the rebels are led by extremists. "I sympathized with them at the start, but after all the destruction, killing and kidnapping, I prefer Bashar Assad." "To Syria's Christians, Assad is no savior, but he is seen by many as the gatekeeper holding back the floodwaters of sectarian retribution and religious persecution by Sunni militants," said Ramzy Mardini, Middle East analyst at the Jamestown Foundation."For minorities, life after Assad looks gloomier and the political opposition is neither strong nor credible enough to make any genuine reassurances to them," he said........"