Syrian opposition (2011–2024)
The Syrian opposition was an umbrella term for the Syrian revolutionary organizations that opposed Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime during the Syrian Revolution and Syrian civil war. The opposition factions in Syria became active as grassroots movements during the mass demonstrations against the Ba'athist regime. The Free Syrian Army was the most prominent armed revolutionary group in the initial stages of the war; but it declined and became decentralized by 2015. By 2021, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham had become the strongest armed faction within the Syrian opposition.
In July 2011, as the situation turned into a civil war, defectors from the Syrian Armed Forces formed the Free Syrian Army. In August 2011, dissident groups operating from abroad formed a coalition called the Syrian National Council. A broader organization, the Syrian National Coalition, was formed in November 2012. Although the groups based abroad established contact with those in Syria, the Syrian opposition suffered during the whole conflict from infighting and a lack of unified leadership, as well as lack of foreign aid as the war became deadlocked.
In 2013, the Syrian National Coalition formed the Syrian Interim Government, which operated first as a government-in-exile and, from 2015, in certain zones of Syria. From 2016, the SIG was present in the Turkish-occupied zones, while the SNC operated from Istanbul. In 2017, the Islamist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, unaffiliated to the SNC, formed the Syrian Salvation Government in the areas it controlled. Both opposition governments operated as quasi-states. Rebel armed forces during the civil war have included the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, affiliated to the SIG, the Syrian Liberation Front, the National Front for Liberation, the Southern Front, the Southern Operations Room, and the American-backed Syrian Free Army. Other groups that challenged Bashar al-Assad's rule during the civil war were the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the jihadist organization known as the Islamic State. The latter group is generally distinguished from the opposition, with whom it was in conflict.
On 27 November 2024, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and a coalition of Syrian armed opposition groups launched 2024 Syrian opposition offensives which led to the fall of the Assad regime after 11 days of fighting. The HTS-led Syrian Salvation Government became the foundation for the Syrian transitional government. During the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference, held in Damascus on 29 January 2025, the dissolution of several armed revolutionary factions and their merger into the newly overhauled Syrian military forces was officially announced. At the event, the Syrian General Command appointed former HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa as president of Syria for the transitional phase.
Background
Syria has been an independent republic since 1946 after the expulsion of the French forces. For decades, the country was partially stable with a series of coups until the Ba'ath Party seized power in Syria in 1963 after a coup d'état. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad seized power, beginning the rule of the Assad family. Syria was under emergency law from the time of the 1963 Syrian coup d'état until 21 April 2011, when it was rescinded by Bashar al-Assad, Hafez's eldest surviving son and his successor as president of Syria.The rule of Assad dynasty was marked by heavy repression of secular opposition factions such as the Arab nationalist Nasserists and liberal democrats. The largest organised resistance to the Ba'athist rule has been the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which successfully capitalised on the widespread Sunni resentment against the Alawite hegemony. An Islamist uprising developed in Syria from 1976. In response, the Assad regime introduced Law No. 49 in 1980 which banned the movement and instituted death penalty of anyone accused of membership in the Brotherhood. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rose as the most powerful opposition force in Syria until it was brutally crushed in 1982.
Prior to the civil war that started in 2011, "opposition" referred to traditional political actors such as political exiles, the public platforms that had emerged during the Damascus Spring and those who later formed the Damascus Declaration alliance; that is, groups and individuals with a history of dissidence against the Syrian state.
History
As the revolutionary wave commonly referred to as the Arab Spring began to take shape in early 2011, Syrian protesters began consolidating opposition councils. Spontaneous protests became more planned and organized. The uprising, from March 2011 until the start of August 2011, was characterized by a consensus for nonviolent struggle among the participants.The opposition councils inside the country became known as the Local Coordination Committees of Syria.
The Istanbul Meeting for Syria, the first convention of the Syrian opposition, took place on 26 April 2011, during the early phase of the civil uprising. There followed the Antalya Conference for Change in Syria or Antalya Opposition Conference, a three-day conference of representatives of the Syrian opposition held from 31 May until 3 June 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. Organized by Ammar al-Qurabi's National Organization for Human Rights in Syria and financed by the wealthy Damascene Sanqar family, it led to a final statement refusing compromise or reform solutions, and to the election of a 31-member leadership.
After the Antalya conference, a follow-up meeting took place two days later in Brussels, then another gathering in Paris that was addressed by Bernard-Henri Lévy, a French author who was involved at the same time in support for the Libyan uprising. It took a number of further meetings in Istanbul and Doha before yet another meeting on 23 August 2011 in Istanbul set up a permanent transitional council in form of the Syrian National Council, which received significant international support and recognition as a partner for dialogue. The Syrian National Council was recognized or supported in some capacity by at least 17 member states of the United Nations, with three of those being permanent members of the Security Council.
File:Syrian civil war 01 04 2016.png|thumb|Opposition control in April 2016.
The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, a broader umbrella organization formed in November 2012, gained recognition as the "legitimate representative of the Syrian people" by the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and as a "representative of aspirations of Syrian people" by the Arab League. The Friends of Syria Group transferred its recognition from the Syrian National Council to the Syrian National Coalition. The Syrian National Coalition subsequently took the seat of Syria in the Arab League, with the representative of Bashar Al-Assad's government suspended that year. The Syrian National Council, initially a part of the Syrian National Coalition, withdrew on 20 January 2014 in protest at the decision of the coalition to attend the Geneva talks. Despite tensions, the Syrian National Council retained a degree of ties with the Syrian National Coalition.
A July 2015 ORB International poll of 1,365 adults across all of Syria's 14 governorates found that about 26 percent of the population supported the Syrian opposition, compared to 47 percent who supported the Ba'athist government, 35 percent who supported the Al-Nusra Front, and 22 percent who supported the Islamic State. A March 2018 ORB International Poll with a similar method and sample size found that support had changed to 40% Syrian government, 40% Syrian opposition, 15% Syrian Democratic Forces, 10% al-Nusra Front, and 4% Islamic State.
While rebel forces initially made significant advances against government forces, the Iranian and Russian interventions in support of the Assad regime shifted the balance of the conflict. Syrian rebel forces were also under attack by the Islamic State as the conflict became multi-sided. Ba'athist forces gradually recaptured most rebel strongholds except the Idlib Governorate and Turkish-occupied zones. A major battle between rebel groups and government forces took place in Aleppo, which was recaptured by the regime in late 2016. In the meantime, Syrian opposition groups, including the Syrian National Coalition, tried to negotiate with the regime as part of a peace process that failed to produce results. The Syrian National Coalition remained fraught with internal conflict and leadership problems. Qatar and Saudi Arabia competed for influence over it. Eventually, the Istanbul-based SNC became essentially a platform for Turkish influence and lost much of its international clout.
In late 2016, the Syrian Interim Government relocated its headquarters to the city of Azaz in North Syria and began to execute some authority in the area. From 2017, the opposition government in the Idlib Governorate was challenged by the rival Syrian Salvation Government, backed by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Moreover, in the areas it nominally controlled, the SIG remained wholly dependent on Turkish support. As of 2022, the Syrian opposition had to deal with Turkey's willingness to normalize relations with the Assad regime. This, together with Turkey's local interference and its handling of the Syrian refugees situation, led in July 2024 to anti-Turkish riots in opposition-held areas.
In late 2024, opposition forces led a series of lightning offensives, routing Ba'athist forces and taking Damascus on December 8. The regime collapsed as Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow. On December 10, Mohammed al-Bashir, previously head of the Syrian Salvation Government, became prime minister of the Syrian transitional government that replaced both the SSG and the last Ba'athist government in Damascus. With one exception, all ministers in the transitional government previously held similar portfolios in the SSG. Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of HTS, became regarded as Syria's de facto leader. In January 2025, he was formally named Syria's president by the Syrian General Command.