External support creates a system of allegiance which tends to weaken the link these groups have with the local people, as they receive funding and logistical support from foreign actors. This variable in the Syrian equation may generate a situation similar to a post-2003 Iraq, where armed factions divided among sectarian lines operate an effective partition of the country. In addition to this, a serious concern for the international community should be represented by the increasingly violent tone of radical elements such as the fundamentalist preacher Ahmad Al Baghdadi Al Hassani, calling for the conversion or the extermination of Christians living in Syria.

The overall risk is that with the fall of Bashar Assad, which may come in a time-span of less than six months, well-armed and better trained groups will launch a second wave of violence against the Syrian population aimed at ethnic and confessional cleansing areas of the country.

The above mentioned situation is worsened by the fact that the regime no longer has a monopoly over human rights abuses.