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Keith. I'll give you some practical examples on Syria:
While many Sunni Syrians do not necessarily enlist in the army proportionately to the Alawite Syrians, they do not, however, tend to join the rebels, who are mainly Sunnis and try to bang the sectarian card as a cause for war.
Hence, the Syrian army and security in general is by far more numerous than the Syrian rebels, without counting forces from other countries, be they pro-Syrian army or pro-rebels.
Here some examples, therefore:
Aleppo, the largest Syrian city with about 2-3 million pre-war residents, did not rise up against the government, even though they are mostly Sunnis. In fact, they were known to be pro the government and supporters of the Baath party led by president Assad.
But a few thousand rebels from other areas of Syria entered the city and entrenched themselves there in the streets, transforming it into a battleground. The rebels there were not actually from Aleppo.
Again, Raqqa, a city with a pre-war population of about 500,000 people, did not rise against the government, but Al-Qaeda linked rebels, mostly from anywhere OTHER than Syria, hence foreign terrorists, attacked the city in January 2013 and drove the Syrian security out, who were outnumbered owing to their being pinned down elsewhere in the country.
As in Aleppo, it was not the people of Raqqa who rose up, even though they are mostly Sunni.
The rebels there came from elsewhere and just took the city over, in fact they came from all over the world apart from Syria.
Even the Syrian rebels of the FSA (free Syrian army) have no presence and no say in Raqqa.
Had the Syrian rebels been so popular, the people of Aleppo and Raqqa would have joined them, but they haven't.
In fact many are now protesting against both the rebels and the Al Queda squads.