Syria for Dummies

To try and be less confused in current debates about Syria, I prepared a little table for myself and am sharing it in the hope it will be useful.

	Pro- Assad (or at least anti-anti-Assad)	Anti-Assad
Political bodies	Syrian government	Syrian National Council, National Coordination Committees, Kurdish National Council
Ethno-religious groups	Most Alaawi Arabs, some Kurds, some Druze, some Christians	Most Sunni Arabs, some Kurds, some Druze, a few Christians
Armies	Syrian army, Iranian special forces (?)	Free Syrian Army, British special forces (?)
Militias and terrorist groups	Shabiha militias, Iranian Basij militias, Lebanese Christian militias, Hezbollah, PKK	Local jihadis such as al-Nusra Sham and other Al Qaeda-ish groups, foreign jihadis (particularly al-Qaeda operatives from Iraq and Yemen), Lebanese Sunni militias, KLA (?)
Intelligence services	SVR	CIA, Mossad (?), MI6 (?), MIT (?) (all of whom are probably simultaneously trying to sabotage anti-Assad jihadis)
States	Iran, Russia, China, Palestine, Venezuela	USA, Britain, France, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Libya. Most of the rest of the world to varying degrees.