Syrian civil war
The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring. The Assad regime responded to the protests with lethal force, which led to a series of defections, the emergence of armed opposition groups, and the civilian uprising descending into a civil war. The war lasted almost 14 years and culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Many sources regard this as the end of the civil war. Post-war clashes and disputes have continued into.
The Syrian opposition to Bashar al-Assad began as an insurgency, forming groups such as the Free Syrian Army. Anti-Assad forces received arms and training from Qatar, Turkey, a United States-led program, and others. Pro-Assad forces received financial and military support from Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah: Iran launched a military intervention in support of the Syrian government in 2013, and Russia followed in 2015. By this time, rebels had established the Syrian Interim Government after capturing the regional capitals of Raqqa in 2013 and Idlib in 2015.
The war's use of chemical weapons, predominantly by Syrian government forces, was the deadliest of the 21st century and since the Iran–Iraq War. The Ghouta sarin attack was followed by an unsuccessful international attempt to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. The 2017 Khan Shaykhun sarin attack prompted a United States missile strike and the 2018 Douma chemical attack was met with missile strikes by the United States, United Kingdom, and France.
In 2014, the Islamic State seized control over Eastern Syria and Western Iraq, prompting a United States-led coalition to launch an aerial bombing campaign against the IS, while providing ground support and supplies to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-dominated coalition led by the People's Defense Units. In 2016, Turkey launched an invasion of northern Syria in response to the creation of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, while also establishing the Syrian National Army to help it fight ISIS and pro-Assad forces.
The December 2016 victory of pro-Assad forces in the four-year Battle of Aleppo marked the recapture of what had been Syria's largest city before the war. In Idlib Governorate, the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham militia formed the Syrian Salvation Government, a technocratic, Islamist administration that governed the region from 2017 until 2024. Meanwhile, IS was territorially defeated in the Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor campaigns. In December 2019, regime forces launched an offensive on Idlib province, which ended in a ceasefire lasting from 2020 until November 2024. During this period, there were regular clashes between pro-Assad forces and HTS.
HTS launched a major offensive on 27 November 2024, with support from the SNA and FSA. Aleppo fell in three days, giving momentum to revolutionaries across the country. Southern rebels launched their own offensive, capturing Daraa and Suwayda. HTS subsequently captured Hama, while the Syrian Free Army and the SDF launched separate offensives in Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor, respectively. On 8 December, Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow as Homs and Damascus fell to the rebels. His prime minister transferred power to the new government, and Israel launched an invasion of Syria's Quneitra Governorate from its 58-year occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
At the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference held at the Presidential Palace in Damascus on 29 January 2025, the new government announced the dissolution of several armed militias and their integration into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, as well as the appointment of former HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa as president of Syria. Later that year, a Druze insurgency formed in the southern Suweida Governorate following clashes with the government and alleged sectarian violence.
Overview and timeline
Protests, civil uprising, and armed insurgency (2011–2012)
In March 2011, popular discontent with President Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist government led to large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region. Numerous protests were violently suppressed by security forces in deadly crackdowns ordered by Assad, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and detentions, many of whom were civilians. The Syrian revolution transformed into an insurgency with the formation of resistance militias across the country, developing into a full civil war by 2012.Peak of violence, foreign interventions (2012–2020)
The war has been fought by several factions. From 2011 to December 2024, the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, alongside its domestic and foreign allies, represented the Syrian Arab Republic and Assad's Ba'athist government. Alternative governments rose in opposition to Assad's rule, including the Syrian Interim Government, a big-tent alliance of pro-democratic, nationalist opposition groups whose military forces consisted of the Syrian National Army and allied Free Syrian militias. Another is the Syrian Salvation Government, whose armed forces were represented by a coalition of Sunni militias led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham. Independent of them is the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, whose military force is the Syrian Democratic Forces, a multi-ethnic, Arab-majority force led by the Kurdish People's Defense Units. Other competing factions include jihadist organizations such as al-Qaeda's Syrian branch Hurras al-Din and the Islamic State.The civil war has also served as a proxy war as a number of foreign countries–including Turkey, Iran, Russia and the United States–have been directly involved in the conflict, providing support to opposing factions. Iran, Russia and Hezbollah supported Assad's government militarily, with Iran intervening in 2013 and Russia conducting airstrikes and ground operations in the country beginning in September 2015. In 2014, the US-led international coalition officially began conducting air and ground operations–primarily against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda elements such as Hurras al-Din and the Khorasan group and occasionally against pro-Assad forces–and has been militarily and logistically supporting factions such as the Syrian Free Army and the SDF. Turkish forces occupied parts of northern Syria and have fought the SDF, Assad government and Islamic State alike while actively supporting the SNA. Between 2011 and 2017, fighting from the Syrian civil war spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian government traveled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil. While officially neutral, Israel exchanged border fire and conducted repeated strikes against Hezbollah and Iranian elements inside Syria, whose presence in the country it viewed as a security threat.
Violence in the war peaked during 2012–2017 amid rebel and government offensives and sectarian and Islamist violence. International organizations had accused virtually all sides involved—the Assad government, the Islamic State, opposition groups, Iran, Russia, Turkey and the US-led coalition—of severe human rights violations and massacres. The conflict had caused a major refugee crisis, with millions of people fleeing to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan; however, a sizable minority also sought refuge in countries outside of the Middle East, with Germany alone accepting over half a million Syrians since 2011. Since 2011 a number of peace initiatives had been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continued.
;Escalation; Government clashes with Rebel
;Rise of the Islamist groups
;US intervention
;Russian intervention; first partial ceasefire
;Aleppo recaptured; Russian/Iranian/Turkish-backed ceasefire
;Syrian-American conflict; de-escalation zones
;ISIL siege of Deir ez-Zor broken; CIA program halted; Russian forces permanent
;Government forces advance in Hama province and Ghouta; Turkish intervention in Afrin
;Douma chemical attack; US-led missile strikes; southern Syria offensive
;Idlib demilitarization; Partial US withdrawal; Iraq strikes ISIL targets
;ISIL attacks continue; US states conditions of withdrawal; fifth inter-rebel conflict
;New outbreaks of civil war; northwestern offensive; northern buffer zone established
;US forces withdraw from buffer zone; Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria
In October 2019, Kurdish leaders of the AANES announced they had reached a major deal with the Assad government, allowing for Syrian Army forces to enter Kurdish-held towns along the Syria–Turkey border. The deal was part of an effort to resist Turkey's cross-border incursion into AANES territory after US forces withdrew from the area after the collapse of the Northern Syria Buffer Zone. In November 2019, Russia, Turkey and the Assad government established a new buffer zone in northern Syria that deescalated the Kurdish-Turkish clashes. US-led coalition forces regrouped in eastern Syria in continued support of the SDF against the Islamic State insurgency, amid tensions with local Russian forces and Iranian elements in the region.
By the end of the decade, the war had resulted in an estimated 470,000–610,000 violent deaths, making it the second-deadliest conflict of the 21st century, after the Second Congo War.
Stalemate and frozen conflict (2020–2024)
Following the March 2020 Idlib ceasefire, frontline fighting between the Syrian government under Assad and opposition groups had mostly subsided. By 2021, the Assad government controlled about two-thirds of the country and was consolidating power. Although, regular flare-ups occurred among factions in northwestern Syria, and large-scale protests emerged in southern Syria and spread nationwide in response to extensive autocratic policies and the economic situation. The protests were noted at the time as resembling the 2011 revolution that preceded the civil war.The civil war had largely settled into a stalemate by early 2023. The United States Institute of Peace said:
Twelve years into Syria's devastating civil war, the conflict appears to have settled into a frozen state. Although roughly 30% of the country is controlled by opposition forces, heavy fighting has largely ceased and there is a growing regional trend toward normalizing relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Over the last decade, the conflict erupted into one of the most complicated in the world, with a dizzying array of international and regional powers, opposition groups, proxies, local militias and extremist groups all playing a role. The Syrian population has been brutalized, with nearly a half a million killed, 12 million fleeing their homes to find safety elsewhere, and widespread poverty and hunger. Meanwhile, efforts to broker a political settlement have gone nowhere, leaving the Assad regime firmly in power.
The US Council on Foreign Relations said:
The war whose brutality once dominated headlines has settled into an uncomfortable stalemate. Hopes for regime change have largely died out, peace talks have been fruitless, and some regional governments are reconsidering their opposition to engaging with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. The government has regained control of most of the country, and Assad's hold on power seems secure.
However, major clashes continued between Turkish forces and factions within Syria. In late 2023, Turkish forces continued to attack Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Starting on 5 October 2023, the Turkish Armed Forces launched a series of air and ground strikes targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria. The airstrikes were launched in response to the 2023 Ankara bombing, which the Turkish government alleged was carried out by attackers originating from northeastern Syria.