These 5 Facts Explain Bashar Assad's Hold in Syria - TIME

More than 4 million Syrians have been displaced by civil war—but Bashar al-Assad isn’t one of them. These five facts explain why Syria’s embattled president will remain in power.

Assad currently controls 25 percent of Syrian territory, and he’ll hold on to it as if his life depends on it—because it probably does. The territory he still commands is confined to large population centers on the coast, but that’s enough as long as he continues to receive support from abroad. Russia hopes to secure a military foothold and protect its access to a deep-water port in the Mediterranean, the only Russian port outside the former Soviet Union, by sending Assad half a dozen T-90 tanks, 15 howitzers, 35 armored personnel carriers and 200 marines in recent weeks.

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