![Neal Rauhauser](http://phibetaiota.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/neal-large-300x300.jpg)
Coming back to work topics after a weekend of covering Twitter's endless nerdwars I am pretty horrified by the news coming out of Syria.
Ethnic Kurds are the largest group of stateless people in the world. Their population straddles the meeting point for Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. I read a few weeks ago that the Assad regime had recognized early on that Kurdish disinterest was in their best efforts and they left the far northeast provinces alone. That is apparently changing.
![Click on Image to Enlarge](http://phibetaiota.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/kurd-distribution-300x220.png)
Islamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria
The new round of fighting broke out in Tel Abyad, a border town near Turkey in the rebel-held Raqqa province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes began after Kurdish militias in the area discovered fighters from an al Qaeda-linked rebel group trying to rig one of their bases with explosives.
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