According to the Vatican's official news service (http://www.fides.org/aree/newsdet.php?idnews=31978&lan=eng) - Fides - and many other Christian news sources (http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/04/obama-backed-syrian-rebels-ethnic-cleansing-christians/) , the Syrian opposition is targeting Christians. Priests and bishops on the ground in Syria comfirm these reports (http://www.aina.org/news/2012072912019.htm) .
As a Syrian priest writes in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug.02/syria-christians-catalyst-peace)
Despite what you might read in much of the western media, Syria is an enlightened, secular society with a deeply spiritual core and the common belief is that Syria is for everybody. A fundamentalist state would destroy the traditions of co-existence and religious harmöny that have existed here since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly 100 years ago. Syrian independence was won with the blood of all Syrians - Muslim, Christian, Druze, Alawite and Kurdish.
As BBC notes (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15239529)
Syria has for much of the century had a sizeable Christian minority, making up at least 10% of the population.
In recent years Syria has been considered one of the easier Middle Eastern countries for Christians to live in. Power is concentrated in the hands of the Alawite minority - a Shia sect considered heretical by many Muslims - which has clamped down hard on extreme forms of Islam.
Indeed, PBS reports (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/world/july-dec12/syria_07-31.html) that Syrian Christians are accepting arms from the government to protect themselves against terrorists.
Similarly, for all his faults, Saddam was a secular ruler who tolerated Christians... but Christians have been persecuted (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqs-christian-minority-loses-its-innocence-now-the-rule-of-saddam-is-over-6155429.html) by the post-Saddam regime.
As the Syrian priest notes:
In Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, western allies admitted that they had no postwar plan and many paid the price for this - especially the Iraqi minorities; since Saddam fell, hundreds of thousands of Christians as well as Muslims have fled Iraq in the face of sectarian violence and terrorism. Now, people are calling for a regime change in Syria without a clear plan for what should happen next. Should the minorities pay the same price in Syria?
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