The Syrian Civil War was a multi-sided civil war in Syria which began on 15 March 2011 during the Arab Spring. The civil war initially started out as a series of pro-democracy protests which were violently suppressed by President Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship, leading to defectors from the Syrian Arab Army allying with protesters and forming the Free Syrian Army to violently overthrow Assad's regime. The violence, initially confined to Damascus and Aleppo, soon became a sectarian conflict as mostly Sunni Syrian Opposition groups, al-Qaeda-backed Salafi jihadist groups, the Syrian Arab Army and its allied nations and militias, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and the Islamic State caliphate battled for control of a country which soon fell into anarchy as rival factions carved out territories for themselves. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, was able to turn the tide of the war on 22 December 2016 by capturing the rebel stronghold of Aleppo, while, in the northeast, the US-backed Kurdish and Arab SDF forces battled the powerful Islamic State and recaptured all of its territories by 23 March 2019. These developments confined the remnants of the Free Syrian Army and the jihadist forces to Idlib Governorate and other regions along the Turkish border, while the SDF occupied al-Hasakah Governorate and parts of Deir ez-Zor Governorate and Raqqa Governorate in the northeast and the Syrian government controlled the rest of Syria. On 9 October 2019, Turkey launched a military invasion of Syria, "Operation Peace Spring", to destroy the SDF (which was allied to the Kurdish PKK terrorist group in Turkey) and assist the pro-Turkey Syrian National Army faction of the FSA. By then, peace talks had made progress, and the Syrian Civil War drew closer to its end as the Syrian government controlled 65% of the country by 31 October 2019 and 25% was controlled by the SDF, which announced its plans to merge into the Syrian Arab Army after a political agreement was signed. By March 2019, a total of 570,000 people had died in the Syrian Civil War, while 7,600,000 civilians were internally displaced and 5,116,097 forced to flee the country.
Background[]
In 2000, following the death of President Hafez al-Assad, his British-educated son Bashar al-Assad succeeded him as head of the Ba'athist regime. The implementation of free market policies by the Syrian government led to a significant increase in socioeconomic inequality, and high youth unemployment rates, high poverty rates in cities such as Daraa and Homs and among conservative Sunnis, a historically-intense drought from 2006 to 2011, and restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly led to growing discontent with the Syrian government. In 2011, the Arab Spring protest movement spread across the Arab World, and, in January 2011, minor protests began to take place in Syria. These transformed into massive protests in March, and the protests met with police and military violence, massive arrests, brutal crackdowns, and censorship. By the end of April, the Syrian Arab Army was deployed to suppress the protests, and, by 17 August 2011, 2,154 civilians and 500 soldiers had been killed, 1,857 security forces and thousands of protesters injured, and 12,617 protesters arrested. On 29 July 2011, army defectors founded the Free Syrian Army, and the protests transitioned into an armed insurgency.
War[]
Early insurgency[]
By September 2011, the FSA was engaged in an active insurgency campaign in many parts of Syria, and, from 27 September to 1 October, Syrian government forces launched an offensive on the rebel base of al-Rastan, forcing the FSA leadership to flee to Turkey and the FSA soldiers to Homs. By October, the Turkish government allowed the FSA leadership to operate its command and headquarters from Hatay, and, that same month, Syrian rebels captured most of Idlib city. The Syrian government, seeking to sabotage the rebel cause, released its Islamist prisoners and provided them with arms in order to make itself the least bad choice for the international community. In November 2011, major street fighting broke out between the army and the rebels in Homs, and the army failed to quell the unrest. In January 2012, the Syrian government began to use large-scale artillery operations against the insurgency, indiscriminately shelling Homs. That same month, clashes erupted around Damascus, and, on 18 January, the FSA took control of Zabadani. On 5 February, Opposition forces gained control of the town of Rastan and the Damascus suburbs, endangering the capital. At the same time, the Syrian military launched a counteroffensive to retake rebel-held strongholds in Homs, and, by the end of March, the army was in control of 70% of the city. By 14 March, Syrian troops ousted the rebels from Idlib after days of fighting.
2012-2013 escalation[]
From April to May 2012, the United Nations mediated a ceasefire between the government and the rebels, but the summary execution of 108 people at Houla on 25 May 2012 led to the ceasefire collapsing. On 1 June 2012, Assad swore to crush the anti-government uprising, and the conflict began moving into Damascus and Aleppo. By July, the rebels had taken Qusayr in Homs Governorate and Saraqeb in Idlib Governorate, and, on 18 July, Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Defense Minister Hasan Turkmani, and President al-Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat were killed in a suicide bombing in Damascus. From the winter of 2012 to the spring of 2013, the rebels advanced on all fronts. In October 2012, the rebels took Maarat al-Numan in Idlib, and they also threatened Damascus by taking Douma. An Eid ceasefire in October quickly collapsed, and the Syrian government decided to expand its bombing campaign in Damascus. On 22 November, the rebels took Mayadin in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, and, in December, the FSA captured the Yarmouk neighborhood and several Palestinian refugee camps in Damascus after pushing out the PFLP-GC fighters defending the area. Three-quarters of Hama Governorate was overwhelmed by the rebels, followed by the town of Harem in Idlib.
At the same time, the Islamist militants released by the Syrian government began to grow in power, with al-Qaeda establishing the al-Nusra Front as its affiliate in Syria. On 11 January 2013, al-Nusra captured the Taftanaz air base in Idlib Governorate after weeks of fighting, capturing a game-changing number of weapons. On 11 February, they captured al-Thawrah and the Tabqa Dam in Raqqa Governorate, and they also took Shaddadi in al-Hasakah Governorate on the Iraqi border. On 2 March 2013, clashes erupted between the Syrian Army and rebels in Raqqa itself, and, on 3 March, the rebels freed the prisoners of Raqqa's central prison. At the same time, 200 rebels and government soldiers were killed during fighting for the Khan al-Asal police academy in Aleppo. By 6 March, Raqqa was in al-Nusra's hands, making it the first provincial capital to be lost by the Syrian government. In April 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq militant group expanded into Syria and formed the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL), which would go on to become a major faction in the war as thousands of Islamic militants and 80% of al-Nusra's foreign fighters joined its ranks. On 12 July 2013, the assassination of FSA commander Kamal Hamami by ISIL led to war between the two factions. Meanwhile, the Kurdish YPG forces took Ras al-Ayn from al-Nusra Front and clashed with government and Islamist forces in northeastern Syria; the Islamists committed grave war crimes against Kurdish civilians in northern Syria.
On 22 July 2013, the rebels seized the western Aleppo suburb of Khan al-Asal, the government's last stronghold in western Aleppo Governorate. On 25 July, the SAA recaptured al-Sukhnah from al-Nusra, and it repelled a rebel offensive into Latakia Governorate in August. On 21 August 2013, the Syrian government carried out a chemical attack on the Ghouta region of the Damascus countryside, gassing thousands of people to death in a horrific atrocity. While the government took Ariha on 3 September, the rebels cut off the government's last supply route into Aleppo with the capture of Khanasir on 26 August. On 8 September, al-Nusra militants captured the Christian town of Maaloula, but it was recaptured by the SAA shortly after. On 18 September, ISIL took Azaz from the FSA. On 3 October, the SAA recaptured Khanasir from the rebels, and it reopened its supply routes into Aleppo on 7 October. In mid-October, rebels captured large portions of Deir ez-Zor city. That same month, the government launched offensives against the rebels in Damascus and Aleppo, turning the tide of the Battle of Aleppo. On 2 December, the FSA retook Maaloula and kidnapped 12 nuns, taking them to Yabroud. The US and Britain, who had been covertly supporting the FSA in a train-and-equip program, cut off all non-lethal aid to the FSA, having grown concerned about these supplies falling into the hands of the Islamist opposition factions.
Rise of the Islamists[]
2014 saw the Islamist opposition groups rise to be the most powerful insurgent groups in the country. ISIL had pushed al-Nusra out of Raqqa in November 2013 after al-Nusra rejected a merger on al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri's orders, and by mid-January 2014, ISIL repelled the other jihadist groups from Raqqa. On 16 March 2014, Hezbollah and government forces recaptured Yabroud from the rebels. Starting on 5 June, ISIL launched lightning offensives in northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria, and ISIL captured the SAA positions around Raqqa and made Raqqa the capital of their self-proclaimed "Islamic State" caliphate. On 23 September 2014, the US began bombing ISIL forces in Syria to slow its advance, and they also attacked the al-Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan Group, which they claimed was planning terrorist attacks on America and the West. In October 2014, ISIL forces besieged the Kurdish stronghold of Kobani on the Kurdish border, but, by 26 January 2015, the YPG's brave resistance and US airstrikes expelled ISIL from the city, turning the tide of the war as ISIL's advances were halted. By the end of February 2015, the al-Nusra Front had defeated the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and the Hazzm Movement and taken control of large swathes of Idlib Governorate by 24 March. On 25 April 2015, the rebels took Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib, and, at the end of May, Idlib itself fell. At this point, many members of moderate rebel groups defected to extremist groups such as al-Nusra and Ahrar ash-Sham. From May to September, ISIL also made several gains, capturing Palmyra and al-Qaryatayn from the Syrian government. On 27 October 2019, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed himself during an Delta Force raid in Idlib Governorate,marking an end to the ISIL leader. The new leader is Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
Russian and Turkish interventions[]
In September 2015, the Russian Air Force and Russian Navy began bombing ISIL and Syrian Opposition forces in Syria to support the government, and their use of cluster bombs, carpet bombing, and white phosphorus created controversy, as they killed over 8,000 civilians in indiscriminate bombing. On 24 November 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Turkish airspace, nearly leading to war between the countries. In January 2016, the Ba'athists recaptured al-Shaykh Maskin in Daraa Governorate, turning the tide of the war. From February to July 2016, a ceasefire was in place, but, from July to December 2016, the SAA launched an offensive to recapture Aleppo, which fell on 22 December 2016, a major blow to the rebels. Meanwhile, from August 2016 to March 2017, the Turkish Army and the Opposition launched Operation Euphrates Shield to deprive ISIL of its last border strongholds, seizing al-Bab from them; they also captured Jarabulus from the SDF and prevented them from unifying their two disconnected territories in northern Syria. Meanwhile, starting in October 2016, the YPG began an offensive to capture Raqqa from ISIL, and they began a slow process of pushing ISIL fighters back towards the city. In March 2017, the SAA made a deal with the rebels, trading the besieged SAA strongholds of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya in Idlib for the besieged FSA strongholds of Zabadani and Madaya in Rif Dimashq Governorate. On 7 April 2017, the US launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at the SAA's Shayrat Airbase to retaliate for a chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, but this did little to deter the government from its attacks on civilians. By the end of April, the SAA had retaken Halfaya and Taybat al-Imam in Hama Governorate from the rebels. On 17 October 2017, Kurdish forces captured Raqqa from IS after months of fighting, dealing a massive blow to IS in Syria. In November 2017, ISIL's siege of Deir ez-Zor was broken, and, in March 2018, the FSA took Afrin from the YPG, causing a breach in the US-Turkey alliance. On 7 April 2018, a chemical attack on Douma killed 70 civilians and wounded 500, and Syrian forces then entered Douma and ended the five-year Siege of Ghouta; on 14 April, the US, France, and UK retaliated with missile strikes on Syrian airbases. On 21 May 2018, the SAA and allied Palestinian groups recaptured the Yarmouk refugee camp from ISIL, and, by the end of July, the SAA completely recaptured Daraa and Quneitra Governorates from the rebels. On 17 September 2018, Russia and Turkey agreed to create a demilitarized zone in Idlib in an attempt to freeze the conflict.
Decline of the Opposition[]
From 1 to 10 January 2019, Tahrir al-Sham attacked and seized National Front for Liberation positions in Idlib and Aleppo, effectively taking over the jihadist opposition. On 23 March 2019, the YPG captured ISIL's last stronghold in Syria, Baghuz Fawqni, destroying the ISIL caliphate and reducing ISIL in Syria to an insurgency; however, ISIL still had 10,000 fighters who continued to fight. In May 2019, the SAA launched a new offensive in northwestern Syria, and, by August, they captured Khan Shaykhun, Kafr Nabudah, Qalaat al-Madiq, al-Sayyad, Kafr Zita, Morek, al-Lataminah, al-Habit, and al-Tamanah, and they encircled the Turkish observation post at Morek. On 9 October, the Turkish Army launched a full-scale invasion of northwestern Syria in "Operation Peace Spring", aiming to capture all of the northern border regions from the SDF and turn them over to their Syrian National Army allies. On 22 October, Russia and Turkey reached a new deal to demilitarize Northern Syria, and, on 30 October, the Syrian Constitutional Committee (consisting of thirds of Syrian government appointees, UN appointees, and Opposition appointees) met for the first time, hoping to achieve a peace deal. Violence once again broke out in Operation Dawn of Idlib 2 from December 2019 to March 2020, nearly leading to a Turco-Syrian war. The frontline in Idlib stabilized after the SAA's partially successful offensive, and the fighting halted for much of the rest of the year. Over the next few years, fighting in Syria tended to be inter-factional conflict between rebel groups in Idlib, counter-terrorism operations against ISIL, or periodical skirmishes between Syrian government and jihadist forces.
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