SUMMARY

Syrian Insurgents attacked civilians in the context of the civil war in Syria (for more information see Syria: Government).

Most civilian deaths in this dyad occurred in connection to car bombs and IEDs targeting civilians as well as executions.

In 2013 about half of the deaths occurred on 4 August, when a number of rebel groups struck several villages in Latakia-province by the Mediterranean coast. Aside from executing almost over 180 civilians, they also took hundreds of hostages. These attacks were highly coordinated such that fighters arrived and encircled the villages at the same time. The nature of the attacks was such that they could amount to crimes against humanity.

Other prominent instances of one-sided violence included an attack on the Iman Mosque in the capital Damascus in March 2013. The attack killed about 50 people.

On a general note should be mentioned that coding violence in Syria is not unproblematic. Plenty of violence went unreported, or was reported in a way making it impossible to code as either non-state, one-sided, or state-based in nature.

Moreover, distinguishing between different groups, and establishing which ones were included in a given event was frequently very challenging. In order to cope with this situation, one-sided and state-based violence uses the collective name “Syrian Insurgents” to capture rebel violence.

Syrian Insurgents first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2012, when the one-sided violence resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in August of that year after car bombs and IEDs had resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths.