What most people see it as ww3 in Middle east in reality it is Religious Proxy war. 

If you look at nytimes Article illustration of the player you will understand it clearly is Protestant Christian alliance with Sunni Muslim, against Orthodox christian, Catholic Christian and Shia Muslim.  Monarchy versus Republic,  however nytimes sort of avoid the religious connection.  This proxy war started after ww2 have been going on since, mostly orchestrated by the British and Turks the two old evil empires. we have illustrated on the short video for your convenience. 

 

Read New York time Article Untangling the Overlapping Conflicts in the Syrian War

By SERGIO PEÇANHA, SARAH ALMUKHTAR and K.K. REBECCA LAI OCT. 18, 2015

What started as a popular uprising against

the Syrian government four years ago has become

a proto-world war with nearly a dozen countries

embroiled in two overlapping conflicts: