I always remember the common western troops statement, “How can we know who are the bad guys? They all look the same”; I think it applies on the conflict in Syria so much that I say it too.

The reason is that the conflict was fueled for so long that different residents of different cities started fighting each other; it can be considered a sort of limited civil war between subcategories of the same people.

Religiously, a Muslim can’t fight or seek to kill another Muslim and peaceful means must be adopted to solve the conflict. Only in case of abuse against weak Muslim people or nation/s, the intervention by force is necessary to stop the abusers. Separating the participants until it’s possible to start the dialogue is what I would do in that case anyways as well as stopping any possible theft of resources or assets in general.