News •
In March 2011 antigovernment protests broke out in Syria, inspired by a wave of similar demonstrations elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa that had begun in December 2010. In the southwestern city of Darʿā, several people were killed on March 18 when security forces opened fire on protesters who were angered by the arrest of several children for writing antigovernment graffiti. Protests soon appeared in other Syrian cities, including Bāniyās, Latakia, Homs, and Ḥamāh. From the first days of the crisis, the Assad regime responded aggressively, deploying the country’s powerful security services to break up rallies, often with live fire, and to arrest suspected dissidents. These harsh tactics, however, failed to contain the protest movement and even appeared to backfire; reports of violence by security forces mobilized more Syrians against the government, and the funerals of slain protesters became gathering points for new demonstrations. Because of the Syrian regime’s heavy restrictions on journalists, information about the crisis spread mainly through eyewitness accounts and amateur videos. By late April the government had begun to conduct military operations against presumed centres of antigovernment activity such as Darʿā, Bāniyās, and Homs, encircling restive areas with artillery and snipers, cutting off communications and electricity, and conducting sweeps with tanks and troops. Reports of summary arrests and killings became commonplace.
Assad and other senior officials insisted that the uprising was primarily the work of foreign-sponsored “armed groups” sent to Syria to destabilize the country. Although the regime publicly downplayed the extent of antigovernment sentiment among Syrians, it took measures to placate aggrieved groups, introducing concessions targeting Kurds and conservative Sunni Muslims. The regime also dismissed cabinet officials and hinted at wider reforms in the future. In April the government passed measures lifting Syria’s emergency law, which had been in place for 48 years, and dissolving Syria’s Supreme State Security Court, a special court used to try defendants accused of challenging the government. Members of the opposition dismissed these reforms as strictly cosmetic, and their doubts were seemingly validated when the government’s violent campaign against protesters continued unabated.
Reports of clashes between armed opposition militias and government troops began to emerge in the summer of 2011. Many of the militias reportedly included defected members of the Syrian armed forces. In September a group of opposition activists meeting in Istanbul announced the formation of the Syrian National Council (SNC), an umbrella group claiming to represent the Syrian opposition.
Meanwhile, the government crackdown on protesters and the opposition drew strong condemnation by international leaders and human rights groups, and by the summer of 2011, Syria had begun to descend into international isolation. The United States and the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions that included travel bans and asset freezes targeted against Assad and more than a dozen senior Syrian officials thought to be directing the government’s actions against the protesters. In addition, an arms embargo was applied to the entire country. The violence also strained Syria’s relations with regional allies, particularly Turkey, which strenuously objected to the government’s use of violence against civilians. In June 2011 Turkey received thousands of refugees following an assault by government forces on the northern Syrian city of Jisr al-Shugūr. The worsening humanitarian situation brought calls for international military intervention, but Syria’s allies Russia and Iran continued to object, calling for the Syrian government to be given more time to deal with internal unrest. In October, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian crackdown, effectively blocking the path to UN sanctions or a UN-approved military intervention like the one that had ousted Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi earlier in 2011.
With the UN Security Council unable to reach an agreement regarding intervention in Syria, Middle Eastern states’ efforts to end the crisis came to the fore. Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, in November Syria accepted a peace plan proposed by the Arab League that called for the government to cease violence against protesters and to allow a delegation of Arab League monitors into the country. Many critics saw the Syrian government’s acquiescence as a delaying tactic and thus were unsurprised when the Syrian government quickly backed away from the agreement. In late December, as pressure mounted, Syrian officials agreed to implement the Arab League plan. The plan, however, failed to produce any significant change. Violence persisted in spite of the monitoring delegation’s presence, and there were reports that the monitors’ movements were tightly controlled by the Syrian government. After several Arab countries withdrew their monitors over concerns for their safety, the Arab League formally suspended the monitoring mission on January 28, 2012.
As opposition militias grew and increased their attacks on government forces, the uprising began to take on the character of a civil war. Sustained offensives to root out rebel fighters in cities such as Homs, Idlib, and Ḥamāh produced some of the highest death tolls yet seen in the conflict as government forces surrounded and bombarded opposition districts with little concern for the civilian population. Those onslaughts lent new urgency to international deliberations about the possibility of giving financial and possibly military support to the rebels, and Syrian rebel fighters soon began to receive funds and equipment from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Western countries, although largely sympathetic to the rebels, were reluctant to provide substantial military aid for fear that it would strengthen Sunni extremist groups within the rebellion. Those included a variety of regional Islamist militias as well as the Nusrah Front, a newly formed affiliate of al-Qaeda that was responsible for a series of bomb attacks on military and police forces.
In March 2012 the UN Security Council approved a peace plan that, like the Arab League plan, called for the Syrian government to end violence and accept a monitored cease-fire. The plan, brokered by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, went into effect in April but quickly collapsed, with both sides breaching the cease-fire. The UN formally suspended its monitoring mission in June.
By early 2012 many international observers and members of the opposition had come to regard the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council as too narrow and too weakened by infighting to effectively represent the opposition. After months of contentious diplomacy, in November Syrian opposition leaders announced the formation of a new coalition called the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (sometimes called the Syrian National Coalition). Over the next month the coalition received recognition from dozens of countries as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
By late 2012 the military situation appeared to be approaching stalemate. Rebel fighters kept a firm hold on northern areas but were held back by deficiencies in equipment, weaponry, and organization. Meanwhile government forces, weakened by defections, also seemed incapable of making large gains. Daily fighting continued in contested areas, pushing the civilian death toll higher and higher.
With no decisive outcome in sight, the international allies of the Syrian government and the rebels stepped up their support, raising the prospect of a regional proxy war. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar’s efforts to fund and arm rebels became increasingly public in late 2012 and early 2013, while the Syrian government continued to receive weapons from Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. By late 2012 Hezbollah had also begun sending its own fighters into Syria to battle the rebels.
There were new calls for international military action in Syria after suspected chemical weapons attacks in the suburbs of Damascus killed hundreds on August 21, 2013. The Syrian opposition accused pro-Assad forces of having carried out the attacks. Syrian officials denied having used chemical weapons and asserted that if such weapons had been used, rebel forces were to blame. While UN weapons inspectors collected evidence at the sites of the alleged chemical attacks, U.S., British, and French leaders denounced the use of chemical weapons and made it known that they were considering retaliatory strikes against the Syrian regime. Russia, China, and Iran spoke out against military action, and Assad vowed to fight what he described as Western aggression.
The prospect of international military intervention in Syria began to fade by the end of August, in part because it became evident that majorities in the United States and in the United Kingdom were opposed to military action. A motion in the British Parliament to authorize strikes in Syria failed on August 29, and a similar vote in the U.S. Congress was postponed. Meanwhile, diplomacy took centre stage, resulting in an agreement between Russia, Syria, and the United States on September 14 to place all of Syria’s chemical weapons under international control so that they could be destroyed. The UN inspectors’ report, released two days later, confirmed that rockets carrying the nerve gas sarin had been used on a large scale in the attacks on August 21. The report, however, did not specify which side was responsible for the attacks, and it did not give an exact number of victims.
The destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile under the supervision of the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began in October 2013. In August of the following year the OPCW certified that all agents falling under Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (substances with limited nonmilitary applications, such nerve gas, mustard gas, and their chemical precursors) had been destroyed. There were, however, subsequent reports of chemical weapons use, including the use of sarin and chlorine gas.
Spread of ISIL into eastern Syria and international involvement in the war
In 2013 the largely secular anti-Assad opposition represented by the Free Syrian Army increasingly saw itself being eclipsed by a variety of Islamist militant groups. In November 2013 seven Islamist regional militias merged to form the Islamic Front. The portion of the Islamist opposition with ties to al-Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliate also continued to evolve: in April 2013 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced his intention to combine his forces in Iraq and Syria under the name Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS]). The merger was rejected by the Nusrah Front; infighting between the Nusrah Front, aligned with the faction of al-Qaeda led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, and ISIL, the successor of al-Qaeda in Iraq, followed.
In spite of its alienation from the Nusrah Front, ISIL retained considerable strength in eastern Syria, establishing a zone of exclusive control in the Euphrates valley centred on the city of Al-Raqqah. In the areas ISIL controlled, it imposed a strict version of Islamic law. It also cultivated a reputation for brutality, staging public executions and killing or expelling non-Muslims. From eastern Syria, ISIL launched a series of successful operations in both Syria and Iraq; the western Iraqi cities of Al-Fallūjah and Al-Ramādī came under its control in early 2014, and a subsequent offensive captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. In control of a wide swath of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, ISIL proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate, with al-Baghdadi as caliph, in June 2014.
ISIL’s sudden advances in Iraq, which were accompanied by a stream of brutal propaganda videos disseminated via social media, alarmed the international community and multiplied calls for action. On August 8 the United States launched limited air strikes in Iraq to prevent ISIL from advancing into the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq and to protect Christians and Yazīdīs threatened by the group. The strikes slowed the group’s advance, but a series of videos showing ISIL fighters beheading Western aid workers and journalists strengthened fears that the group posed a global threat. On September 23 the United States, leading an international coalition that included Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, expanded its air campaign to include targets in Syria.
Also in September 2014 ISIL turned its attention to northern Syria, attacking Kurdish towns near the Syria-Turkey border. Kurdish militias, aided by air strikes and weapons deliveries from the international anti-ISIL coalition, fought fiercely to repel ISIL for several months. By early 2015 the Kurds appeared to have gained the upper hand, although Kurdish cities such as Kobani suffered extensive damage, and tens of thousands of refugees were forced out of the area.
In early 2015 Assad appeared to be in his most precarious position since the early months of the uprising. Government forces had suffered a series of defeats to rebels in northern Syria, forcing Assad to make a rare public acknowledgement in May that his troops had encountered setbacks and that the necessity of defending critical areas had meant conceding some smaller battles to the rebels. But events once again turned in Assad’s favour when Russia launched its own military intervention in Syria in support of his regime. Following a buildup of Russian troops and military equipment, Russia began launching air strikes in September 2015. At first Russian officials claimed that it was targeting ISIL, but it soon became clear that the majority of Russian strikes were hitting other anti-Assad rebel groups. The Russian air campaign allowed Assad’s reinvigorated ground forces to launch new assaults on rebel-held territories. In December the last rebel forces were forced to evacuate Homs, Syria’s third largest city, leaving it fully under government control for the first time in three years.
In September 2016, Russian and Syrian government forces turned their attention to Aleppo, intensively bombarding the rebel-held eastern part of the city. The campaign caused heavy civilian casualties. International rights groups accused Russian and Syrian forces of dropping indiscriminate munitions such as cluster bombs and incendiary bombs and targeting medical facilities and aid workers. The collapse of the last rebels in Aleppo in December, though, made it undeniable that the Russian intervention was achieving its aims.
The U.S.-led campaign to destroy ISIL, which had gradually expanded to include heavier air strikes and a sizeable contingent of ground troops in eastern Syria, continued to make progress. The Nusrah Front, ISIL’s strongest ideological rival, united with smaller sympathetic groups as Hayʾat Taḥrīr al-Shām in January 2017 and together fought ISIL in Idlib, capturing territory that ISIL had held in the area. In June 2017 a mostly Kurdish force supported by U.S. air power and special forces attacked Al-Raqqah, ISIL’s de facto capital in Syria. After about three months of fighting, the city was declared free of ISIL forces. Meanwhile, south of the Euphrates, Assad’s forces continued to squeeze ISIL, expelling them from Dayr al-Zawr in November 2017.
Meanwhile, after the use of sarin in Khān Shaykhūn in April 2017, the United States barraged the Shayrat air base near Homs with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. When the use of chemical weapons was reported once more, in April 2018, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France launched more than 100 strikes targeting chemical weapons facilities near Damascus and Homs.
In April and May 2018 Israel targeted the Iranian military in Syria, which had been assisting government forces while posing a growing threat to Israeli security. When Iran shelled the Golan Heights in response, Israel launched its heaviest barrage in Syria since the start of the civil war. Dozens of Iranian military sites were targeted, and Israel claimed to have destroyed nearly all of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria.
Turning point in the war
Having solidified their hold on the areas near Damascus and Homs, Syrian government troops initiated an operation in June 2018 to retake the territories held by rebels in the southwest. As it became clearer that government forces would take control, Russia helped broker deals between government and rebel forces that allowed rebels to surrender their holdings in the southwest region in exchange for safe passage to Idlib, a rebel stronghold in the north of the country backed by a Turkish military presence.
With the government recovery of the southwest region, eyes then turned toward Idlib, the last region of the country held by rebels, and observers expected a massive and destructive government offensive to be imminent. Turkey warned against an offensive and began to reinforce its military presence in and around Idlib. The government began to amass troops along the border, while Syrian and Russian planes struck border towns. In mid-September Russia and Turkey agreed to implement a buffer zone of 9 to 12 miles (15 to 20 km) by October 15 in order to de-escalate tensions. Though it was initially unclear if all parties involved would observe the buffer zone, even the most rogue groups, such as Hayʾat Taḥrīr al-Shām (HTS), seemed to signal their compliance before the deadline. Heavy weaponry was removed from the buffer zone, but some fighters from the rogue groups reportedly remained past the deadline.
As part of the agreement, Turkey was responsible for preventing groups like HTS from prospering in the region. But HTS was able to expand its control in Idlib and became the dominant force by early 2019. The Russian-backed Syrian forces launched an offensive in Idlib in April, capturing territory before a rebel counteroffensive in June was able to push the battle lines back. Turkish and Syrian forces largely refrained from direct confrontation as the conflict in the region persisted, but, after dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed in late February 2020, Turkey undertook a brief offensive against the Syrian army. The escalation ended after a cease-fire was brokered by Turkey and Syria’s ally Russia.