Many Syrian Christians are fighting for Assad. Go figure.
Syria was a sovereign and stable state until outside forces, mainly the USA, supported a revolution against Assad in word, deed, arms and money. This started during the Arab Spring and was fully supported by Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain.
Assad is and was a brutal dictator. Syria was stable until we destabilized it. It was only a threat to Israel which can sure as hell take care of the threat.
As mentioned, Obama, Clinton, and McCain own this humanitarian tragedy as well as the millions that now flow into Europe. The problem is no faction are "good guys," there is only moderately bad to evil incarnate. Clinton, Obama, and McCain backed the evil incarnate. Much blood is on their hands.
PBS ‘Inside Assad’s Syria’ is a nice show explaining your point. They went there for a propaganda effort but failed miserably and couldn’t hide it. Every pro-Assad person they interviewed made sense and the opposite side didn’t.
“but he (Assad) never discriminated against Christians.”
“Many Syrian Christians are fighting for Assad. Go figure.”
Although Assad did discriminate against Christians (Alawites ran the show), he protected them against worst depredations of their Sunni neighbors. There was security and a reasonable lifestyle under Assad, as long as you kept your mouth shut about politics.
The extreme Sunni jihadis are an existential threat to the Christian communities - everything else is just matter of relative advantage. Christians fight for Assad in areas he controls, and for Kurds in areas they control. They need allies against the jihadis, and they need to stay in the good graces of the authorities.
Everybody has to chip in for the defense under such extreme conditions - probably more taxing than what the USA experienced in WWII, in proportional terms. A young man not in uniform is suspect.