As Egypt enters election phase and Libya continues to try to come to grips with a life of freedom, Syria continues to see daily bloodshed.

Libya, aided by Nato airstrikes and special forces on the ground, has just marked one year since the uprising began in the country. But still, the people of Syria bleed over a year later. Syria is a completely different kettle of fish to the other uprisings in the Arab world, yet while it still hits our news screens, it does not do so with the same impact of the protests in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

What is certain is that there is not much coverage coming out of Syria, and most of what does is government propaganda. Turkey has done all it can to try and facilitate life for those who are trying to flee the carnage, especially in the Northern towns. But the reality is that the people of Syria continue to suffer because everyone knows that it is an absolute powder keg. The Assad family is brutal. Bashar’s father had levelled a whole city in the 1980s, and no one knows the full extent of how many people died.

For all his mild manners and London education, the young President is as brutal as, if not more brutal than, his father. The Syrian army is not the rag-tag army of Libya. These men are trained in warfare and are well-armed. The only thing that is keeping Syria’s people from being weeded out one by one, is the decision by certain army units to defect. But where is the Western help? If we are to believe the stories that are coming out of the troubled nation, then hundreds are dying every week. Army snipers hide out in buildings along roads and shoot indiscriminately at anything that moves.

And yet, the West holds back. Syria has oil, so we cannot draw parallels with Bosnia – i.e. look on as everything unfolds because there is no material interest to do so. But Syria is hammered together under a secular regime, and this is what the West sees as an issue. Syria does have ethnic tension and it is largely due to the fact that the Assad family is from an offshoot of Islam called the Alawites. This has led to a situation where the normally feuding Sunnis and Shias have both taken up arms against the government. But would this last if Syria were to oust the family? Would the Shia and Sunni groups be able to keep the peace? And what of the minority Christians in the country?

Nato knows that Syria will be no pushover; it will have certainly tried to glean all intelligence it can off Israel. But perhaps this is the crucial point. What exactly is Israel’s position on Syria? Israel knows that stability is vital to the region and the Assad regime has engaged in benign behaviour with its neighbour. Israel also knows that if Syria does explode into a hotbed of sectarian violence, then it too would become a target. Yes, Syria is different. But the plight of its people is the same as that of Libya, if not worse.