This dyad belongs to the conflict Syria: Government
Summary of conflict Syria: Government
The first conflict over government power began through a coup in 1966, as the forces of Nureddin Atassi and Youssef Zeayen attempted to seize power. A more large-scale armed conflict erupted in 1979, as the Muslim Brotherhood initiated an armed struggle to try to bring down the autocratic government of Hafez Assad. This rebellion was crushed in 1982 by a bloody assault on the Muslim Brotherhoods stronghold of Hama. The city was levelled to the ground and the Muslim Brotherhood defeated. In 2011 conflict broke out again, as the Arab Spring demonstrations were met with brutal violence, and armed groups appeared on the scene.
Violence has plummeted since 2013-2014, the most violent years of the civil war. In 2022, UCDP registered the lowest level of violence between the government of Syria and the Syrian insurgents, since the start in 2011. The situation has evolved from a countrywide war to a frozen situation with a few regional hotspots. Since 2018, most of the violence has been concentrated to Idlib province and adjacent areas in Aleppo and Latakia provinces. In 2021, peace talks resumed in Kazakhstan's capital Nur-Sultan as the 16th and 17th rounds of Astana talks were held there. Also, another round of Geneva talks were held under the auspices of the UN.
On 27 December 2024, an HTS-led rebel offensive on Aleppo led to the fall of the Assad dynasty's 54 year rule in just 10 days, and the ascent of the HTS-dominated interim government.
Independence and the rise of the Assad dynasty
Syria was recognized as an independent state in 1946, having no previous history of independent statehood. The territory that fell to the Syrian state had for a long time been part of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed following its defeat in World War I, after which the territory of modern-day Syria became a French mandate.
In Syria a number of identities competed for dominance at the time of independence, with lines of identification running across religious, nationalist, pan-Arab and tribal lines. The most powerful form of identification finally became secular Arabism, and later Pan-Arabism, which was seized upon by the bulk of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority (approximately 70% of the population). A separate Muslim religious identity also persisted, however, most overtly in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood. The larger minority groups in Syria include the Alawi sect (circa 12%) and Christian Arabs (circa 14%), who were of course not receptive to Sunni Islam as an identity.
Political life in the newly independent state was by no means calm. The upper classes inherited the political leadership of the state from the French, having been the driving force behind the struggle for independence. Being mostly landowners a system of patrimonialism soon dominated the state system, which became controlled by the bourgeois, who in turn were not willing to perform any wide-ranging reforms to transform Syria’s almost feudal system of governance. The system began to rapidly crumble when Syria and its allies were defeated in the war in 1948 that established the state of Israel
A spate of military coups soon followed, putting into place military dictatorships and politicizing the military’s role in society. One such politicized trend within the army was the so-called Ba’ath party, which was to seize power in 1963 through means of a military coup. Some time later the reigns of the state were to be taken by the general of the air force, one Hafiz al-Assad.
The Ba’ath party was one of many radical parties that grew out of opposition to the Syrian system of governance that vested power in the landholders. The Ba’ath’s ideology was composed of Pan-Arabism (the belief that all Arabs formed one nation which had been divided by imperialism), secularism that would include non-Muslims in the community, and socialism that would rid Syria of its ‘feudal’ societal order. Large-scale private businesses were to be regulated nationally, agrarian reform forced upon the country and power vested in the people. The Ba’ath drew its main support from the agrarian poor, but also expanded its influence into some of the urban middle class as employment within the state services became available to them. Ba’athism soon penetrated the army’s structures, as the poor peasantry and the religious and ethnic minorities entered the army’s ranks. Ba’athism appealed to many in the Arab world, and parties were also established in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq (Saddam Hussein was a well-known Ba’athist). Throughout the 1950s the party’s membership swelled and began to seriously challenge the old order, capturing several seats in the 1954 elections.
After the collapse of the United Arab Republic, which had brought Syria into union with Nasser’s Egypt, Syria came under the rule of an immensely unpopular military regime referred to as the ‘infisal’ (separatists, named so due to their abandonment of union with Egypt). The Ba’ath party seized upon the instability and unpopularity of this governing clique and together with Nasserist military officers seized power in a coup in 1963. Shortly after, those officers and bureaucrats that were not Ba’athists were purged, consolidating power in the hands of the Ba’ath.
One such purge took place in 1966, when a military coup took place. This coup, lead by Nureddin Atassi and Youssef Zeayen was an intra-Ba’athist affair, brought on by disputes within the party’s leadership on the course the party was to take to ease tensions within Syrian society. The party’s top clique had by this time begun to acquiesce to demands by the merchant and bourgeois classes, while the more radical sections of the party within the army were strictly adherent to the movement’s core of rural-based socialism. The army clique subsequently initiated a violent coup on 23 February 1966 and ousted the Ba’ath party’s founders from office and purged the party of its followers. This military coup was the initiation of the conflict over government power in Syria.
Between 1966 to 1970 the above mentioned Hafiz al-Assad, who was a member of the military Ba’ath clique, consolidated power in his own hands, power that would later pass to one of his sons. Assad enforced his ‘corrective movement’ (sometimes referred to as neo-Ba’athism) from 1970 and onwards, not tolerating political dissent and controlling politics mainly through coercion and repression. Among those purged from the leading Ba’athists was Nureddin Atasssi, who lead the military coup in 1966.
In addition to carrying out secularist and socialist reforms, one special trait of the Ba’ath in Syria after 1966 was its domination by minority sects, especially the Alawi, of which Assad was a member. For each victory the Alawi faction of the Ba’ath achieved against its rivals the top ranks of the Ba’ath were purged of members of other sects, such as the majority Sunni and the Druze.
The traits of the then ruling Ba’ath party – its socialism, sectarianism and secularism primarily – stood in contrast to Syria’s other dominant trend; pious Sunni Islam. Ba’ath rule soon placed these two ideologies at loggerheads, with the latter trend being institutionalized in the Muslim Brotherhood.
The opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood
The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) are found in Egypt in the late 1920s. The group’s founder was Hassan al-Banna, who might be viewed as the founder of modern-era Islamism. The main ideology of this group was that there could be no separation of religion and state, and that all instances of law and rule should be derived from the holy Quran and not from secular authority. The MB’s ideology grew in importance during the mid- and late 20th century and spread across the Arab world, both in its original form and through inspiring a number of related Islamic groups. The many derivations of the MB and its ideology have proven to be both violent and pacifist, depending on geography and social climate. Armed struggle has thus been waged by adherents of the MB at the same time as charitable organizations have been run.
The Syrian arm of the MB – also referred to as al-Ikhwan, the Brotherhood – was founded in 1945 by Dr. Mustafa as-Sibai, a friend of the original movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. As-Sibai managed to form the MB as an umbrella movement, laying under its wings several smaller Syrian Islamic societies and remaining independent of the original MB in Egypt.
Throughout the late 1940s the MB in Syria was a legal entity, and even managed to conquer some seats in the Syrian parliament under the guise of a political party. The movement later also formed an independent political party to vie for power in Syria and was from its inception a political force to be reckoned with. The MB’s stints as a political party were however short-lived, as the movement was outlawed several times throughout its early existence; the ban being removed now and then as different rulers ascended the throne as Syria’s leaders.
In March 1963 events took a turn for the worse for the MB, with the Ba’ath party’s seizure of power in a military coup. The Ba’ath party was a fiercely secular and socialist outfit that quickly alienated both the more religious sections of the populace as well as other groups (such as the traditional land owners). In somewhat simplified terms the MB was dissatisfied with the Ba’ath’s secular stance, the urban class was outraged by the rural bias of the socialist regime, and the traders and land owners unhappy with socialist economic policies that minimized their profits and political influence. The MB thus found support for its stance not only among the religious, but also among the urban middle class, the traders and the landed bourgeois, and thus opposed socialist economic policies and biases from an Islamic standpoint. In the MB’s view the Ba’athist state represented all that was bad with the West, such as materialism and vice, coupled with all that was bad with the East, such as socialism and corruption, also equating Ba’athist socialism to Marxism, and thus to atheism. The MB’s wide umbrella of relatively liberal Islamist views catered to the demands of those who had been excluded from power by the Ba’ath.
In addition to this Syria under Hafiz al-Assad was deeply sectarian, with the President favoring his own Alawi sect over the majority Sunnis. Many Sunnis resented this clear discrimination. From the religious standpoint of the MB the fact that the Alawi ruled was also problematic, since certain Islamist tendencies proscribed the Alawis as being apostates and unbelievers, in spite of the group commonly being seen as a Shiite sect.
Tensions further increased within the country when Syria intervened on the Christian ‘rightist’ side in Lebanon’s civil war in 1976; a move that seriously compromised the leadership’s legitimacy as an Arab and Muslim proponent.
The MB drew its support mainly from Sunnis from the urban areas of Syria, where religious institutions, the traditional laborers and the middle class dwelled and which were the worst hit by the Ba’ath party’s reforms (secularism and socialism). The major hotbeds of militancy were thus the larger cities such as Hama, Homs and Aleppo. One major exception was the capital, Damascus, whose elites had been effectively co-opted into the regime by Assad.
As the Ba’ath party seized power the MB soon denounced the regime and promised to topple it. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s the MB did, however, not pose any significant military threat to the Syrian leadership. It was not until 1975 that the group managed to organize itself with more strength under the leadership of Adnan Saad ad-Din and Said Hawwa. The two organized a command structure as well as fighting cells, and it is estimated that the number of cadres rose from around 500 in 1975 to almost 30 000 in 1978.
The ideal society of the MB was anti-statist, governed by Islamic law, controlled by a “shura” (learned council) and would ban vices such as gambling, drinking and prostitution. Some more radical members also rejected democracy. In the economic sphere land reforms and a bloated bureaucracy that was considered socialist were to be removed; class divisions were to be overcome by the traditional ‘zakat’ (the giving of alms to the poor according to Islamic tradition). Consequently, the MB declared a jihad on the Syrian Ba’ath government with the aim of replacing it with an Islamic state of that nature.
Thus, in 1979 the armed conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the government of Syria erupted.
The outbreak of armed conflict and the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood
Disturbances and anti-government outbursts had been common in Syria even before the start of the armed conflict in 1979. Early disturbances often took place after anti-Ba’ath services in the urban mosques, after which people would stream into the streets to protest government policies.
A low-level insurgency began only when Marwan Hadid, who was only loosely associated with the MB’s (Muslim Brotherhood) top leadership, initiated a number of assassinations against Ba’ath officials in 1976. As was outlined in the previous section, the true challenge came later, as Said Hawwa and Adnan Saad ad-Din organized the movement to a higher degree and recruited several thousand more followers.
The insurgency began in 1979 with a campaign of state-centered sabotage and assassinations of Ba’ath officials and the regime’s Soviet military advisers. The true scale of the MB’s new reach was revealed in June of the same year, when the movement succeeded in killing approximately 63 army cadets at an artillery camp in Aleppo. The assailants reportedly bribed their way into the camp and killed the cadets using machine guns and hand grenades. The Ba’ath government subsequently promised to eradicate the MB.
The insurgency came to be focused to the areas in which the MB was the most popular, i.e. in the larger cities in the northern region of Syria. In 1980, the MB went on the offensive in these areas, attacking government institutions, police stations and engaging in urban guerrilla warfare, especially in Aleppo, Homs and Hama. These activities were countered by a government clean out operation in the northern cities of Syria in late spring of the same year, which included the used of armored brigades. The government’s offensive, which included severe repression, summary executions and other abuses, escalated further after an attempt on Assad’s life in June 1980. Consequently, membership in the MB became an offense punishable by death.
Internal debate within the Ba’ath party as to how to deal with the uprising was initially split between different factions, resulting in the application of a policy that was a mixture between both increased repression and compromise towards the MB’s demands. This all changed after the failed assassination attempt targeting Assad, after which repression and coercion became the only responses in use. The minor attempts at a dialogue with the opposition were also stifled by the attempt on Assad’s life.
After the attempt to assassinate Assad the MB’s rebellion carried on, with the army continuing its offensive throughout July and August. On 16 August the MB’s military leader, Hisham Jumbaz, was killed in an attack on an MB camp in Homs. Nevertheless, the MB’s uprising continued.
Intense clashes were reported in Aleppo in January 1981, with the government claiming to have killed almost 200 MB fighters in confrontations. Reports also began to spread that several hundred MB members and sympathizers were summarily executed in prison camps. However, opposition continued, with a bombing spree in Damascus in November claiming almost 100 lives, and ambushes against Syrian forces being commonplace.
The MB’s rebellion came to a close in February 1982. In the city of Hama, one of the MB’s strongholds, the movement carried out numerous attacks on government installations and killed many officials at the beginning of the year, finally declaring the city to be liberated from the government. The city, with its narrow alleys and treacherous architecture, proved difficult for the government’s forces to penetrate through conventional attacks. Wishing to destroy the MB once and for all, Assad therefore ordered a siege of and a full-scale attack on Hama, deploying tanks, gunships and artillery, and completely destroyed the city over a period of three weeks. After resistance was broken, bulldozers were sent in to level the city to the ground. Estimates of the number of people killed – both MB and civilian – in this sustained attack and its aftermath vary greatly, from around 7000 to 30 000. It is also difficult to ascertain how many were killed in the bombardments targeting the MB, and how many were murdered following the crushing of the MB’s forces.
The attack on Hama heralded the end of the MB’s insurgency and the armed conflict. Its forces having been crushed and the call for a nationwide uprising having been ignored by the larger masses, most followers abandoned the movement; especially those who had less of an Islamic zeal. The conflict was thus terminated as the Syrian government achieved total victory.
After the end of the armed conflict (1982), the Ba’ath pressed on to purge Syria of the Islamist tendency that had been enshrined in the MB. Mosques and religious institutions were oppressed to assure the dominance of the Ba’ath’s secular and socialist agenda. As a consequence, the MB did not reappear as a threat to Assad’s regime.
Background: Decent into Violence
Note 1! While the UCDP always strives to distinguish between different armed groups active in a given conflict, this has proven impossible in the case of Syria. From the start there were a number of militias active in the conflict, making it very difficult to attribute events to any actors. As the conflict progressed these difficulties remained, making it virtually impossible to adequately reflect the ongoings on the ground. Thus the insurgents fighting the Government of Syria and President Bashar al-Assad since the outbreak of conflict in 2011 are referred to only as Syrian Insurgents.
Note 2! This section focuses on the state-based conflict between the Syrian government and the Syrian Insurgents. For information on other conflicts in Syria during this period please consult Opponents of Bashar al Assad–Supporters of Bashar al Assad and Government of Syria–Civilians for events during the Arab Spring, Syria: Islamic State and Syria: Rojava Kurdistan for as well as descriptions for IS and PYD respectively. As for the inter-rebel conflicts between IS and Syrian Insurgents and IS–PYD with allies, most non-state dyads can be found on the Syria page.
Thousands of Syrians began demonstrating across their country in March 2011, demanding an end to abuses among the security forces and government repression. Syrian demonstrators were inspired by the achievements of mass demonstration movements in Tunisia and Egypt. Violence was limited to a few cases as the majority of protests were peaceful. The Syrian regime was quick to respond with arrests and shootings, resulting in an escalation of violence.
While the oppressive response to the demonstrations that started in Daraa in 2011 was the spark that ignited the conflict, other factors also added to the country's descent into civil war. The contagious effects of the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were the proximate cause of the Syrian civil war. Discontent with the government's response to the drought that plagued Syria from 2006-10 was another underlying cause.
By July 2011, violent unrest was increasing nationwide. The regime had lost control of many peripheral towns and cities as a result of the growing number of guerrilla groups, formed by protestors. A diverse armed opposition that included tribal groups, defectors, separatists, secular nationalists, and Jihadist groups were emerging in parallel with the democracy movement. The spread of violence across the country allowed leaders of armed groups to marginalize further and overshadow the peaceful democratic movement.
During the initial stages of the Syrian rebellion, Jihadi groups were notably absent. Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra front (currently known as HTS) began to surface in early 2012, and IS entered the conflict in August 2013. They were "late-arrivals" in comparison with the moderate opposition that was involved from the beginning. The Syrian civil war changed the dynamic of the power structure, which in turn, gave room from Jihadis to mobilize.
Pro-Regime Forces
Throughout the civil war, the Syrian army suffered heavy losses and was not able to replenish its losses mainly due to the fact that most of the young men requested for draft did not go. In fact, draft dodging is considered one of the main contributors for leaving the country. Therefore, foreign advisors and special operation units from Russia and Iran were embedded with regime forces. In addition, foreign and local militias played the force multiplayer role.
Many pro-regime militias played a key role in military offensives and local security enforcement for the Syrian regime, and are now perceived as lead actors having shaped the fate of the Syrian Civil War. Ultimately, Assad and his allies’ partnership with both local and foreign pro-regime militias are what enabled them to secure the Damascus-Homs-Aleppo axis, coastal regions, Hama and large parts of southern Syria, all key economic locations that together hold the majority of the Syrian population. The most important local pro-regime militias are the National Defense Force (NDF) and Tiger Forces. Lebanese Hezbollah was the most prominent foreign militia along with Iranian-led al Fatemiyoun (Afghani militia) and al Zainabiyoun (Pakistani militia).
The Syrian insurgents
While the UCDP always strives to distinguish between different armed groups in any given conflict, this proved impossible in Syria. From the start, a number of different militias were involved in the conflict, making it difficult to attribute events to specific actors. As the conflict progressed, these difficulties remained, making it virtually impossible to adequately reflect the situation on the ground. The conflict involved a great number of actors, whose relationship to one another was often both complex and fluid. Some reporting spoke of up to 1200 armed opposition groups, and reporting was frequently unable to adequately represent these and their actions. Thus the opposition was coded as Syrian insurgents.
UCDP started to see the armed opposition as Syrian insurgents after the announcement of the FSA on 29 July 2011. The first prominent groups that seemed active in the summer and autumn of 2011 was the Khalid ibn al-Walid Battalion and its splinter al-Farouq Battalion active in Rastan, Homs governorate, Suqour al-Sham together with smaller battalions such as the Green battalion in Idlib governorate and Liwa al-Islam in Duma, Rif Dimashq governorate. After this, the groups mushroomed and formed alliances at an incomparable speed. The Syrian insurgents included actors with different ideological perspectives with often blurred lines and shifting alliances. The alliances have been short-lived, often focusing on a specific battlefront and task.
Conflict Lethality
Civilians have been a regular target for most players in the civil war, either to force them out of their towns, starve them to concession, or for political reasons. Neither the regime nor the insurgents followed a moral code; on the contrary, they resorted to targeting civilians more often than not. Here are some examples of the systematic targeting of civilians in the Syrian civil war.
Barrel bombing: the regime used explosive-filled barrel-shaped containers to primarily target civilians. Barrel bombs are unguided bombs thrown from helicopters flying on high altitudes, which even makes them less accurate. They are considered the regime's weapon of choice to empty a particular town of its inhabitants.
Arrests: the regime's security forces are infamous for incarcerating and later executing anyone who dares to speak against the regime, to the point that Syrians have a saying for security prisons "who goes in is forever missing, and who leaves is reborn."
Indiscriminate bombing: the Syrian regime used indiscriminate bombing of highly populated areas. Regime forces not only did not care for civilian casualties but also, often intentionally targeted them. For example, during the last weeks of 2013, Aleppo was struck by fierce regime air-bombardment, killing more than 500 people. On a much lesser scale, insurgents used indiscriminate bombing. Their weapon of choice was the unguided "elephant projectile" with similar qualities to barrel bombs used heavily on civilian targets in Aleppo city.
Executions: Insurgents have not diverted from the regime's tactics when it comes to brutality. They resorted to mass executions in newly controlled pro-regime towns (examples: north Latakia).
Assassinations: Insurgents resorted to assassinations in insurgent-controlled areas against rival insurgent members or activists.
Suicide bombing: insurgents relied on suicide attacks to disrupt the regime's power in urban concentrations such as Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo, mainly targeting civilians.
Another tactic used by the government as well as the insurgents (albeit on a smaller scale) was to lay siege to areas, hindering the inflow of goods and supplies (such as medicines), as well as barring movement of people in and out of the besieged areas. In the case of the government, they coupled the siege with bombardments and shelling of these areas, thus killing large numbers as well as causing heavy destruction. Eventually, the situation in the besieged areas became so acute that people died of starvation.
Use of chemical weapons
In late December 2012, the first alleged use of chemical weapons was reported. During the first months of the following year more such reports emerged. In March 2013 the UN Secretary General announced that an investigation concerning this would be made, together with the World Health Organization and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). However, the inspectors, were only able to start their investigations on 19 August since the regime refused to allow them access to many sites of alleged chemical weapons use.
On 21 August, two Damascus suburbs were hit with rocket-carried chemical agents, most likely the nerve agent Sarin. Investigations by Human Rights Watch reveal the attacks were most likely carried out by the regime. The attacks claimed many lives, with estimates ranging from about 800 to 1400 deaths. When popular protests emerged in Syria, the governments answer was harsh and included mass arrests, torture of detainees, deprivation of medical treatment for wounded protesters as well as the use of snipers and shooting with live ammunition into crowds of protesters.
The 21 August chemical attacks led to international outcry and the US threatened military intervention. In early September, however, Russia proposed a solution where Syria would not be attacked, but would submit their chemical weapons stock to international supervision and eventual destruction. This proved hard to implement following a comment by US Secretary of State John Kerry that should the Syrian regime give up their chemical arsenal intervention would be avoided, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed solution in early September. In the end, the US and Russia forwarded a solution stipulating that Syria would not be attacked, but would submit their chemical weapons stock to international supervision and eventual destruction. This in turn resulted in an OPCW-UN Joint Mission, formally created on 16 October and tasked with overseeing the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons.
International and Regional Involvement
After a decade of war, Syria was now a place for international rivals to settle their scores or strategically expand their influence. The US, which initially intervened in Syria, spearing a coalition against the Islamic State, see Iraq: Government. Now, it has its forces deployed to counter the Russian influence in SDF controlled areas, to stop the regime from getting access to the oil fields in the east, and stop Iran from establishing a strategic route from Tehran to Damascus. Israel.
To Iran, Syria is a crucial ally, important for its strategic interests. The two countries have a long history of supporting each other. Iran has been able to use Syrian territory to transfer resources to proxy groups in the region, and Syria has received Iranian support for its chemical weapons program. In terms of deterring an Israeli thus had strong incentives to seek to keep Assad in office.
From the outset, Teheran supported several pro-regime militia groups involved in the violence, these groups were transformed into the National Defence Forces (NDF) in 2013 with the help and training from Iran. Further, Hezbollah and various Shi’ite groupings hailing from Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as from Pakistan, also partaking in the violence on the government’s side, are considered Iranian proxy forces. Iran also supported the government with advisers and funding. In October 2015 Iran sent in ground troops to boost Assad's army who launched major ground offensives backed by Russian air strikes.
On the opposing side are several Arab states, notably Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who support the attempts to oust the pro-Iranian Assad regime. Particularly Saudi Arabia is keen to avoid extended Shi’a influence (Assad’s Alawite religious sect is an offshoot of Shi’a Islam), and limit Iranian influence in the region. However within the pro-opposition camp, there are two main divisions. While Turkey and Qatar (and Egypt under the toppled Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammad Morsi), supported an MB alternative to Assad, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE were wary of such an alternative. The latter was fearful that the rise of the MB in Syria would threaten the survival of Jordan's monarchy and later threaten the Saudi regime and its influence in the region. Consequently, Saudi Arabia faced a strategic dilemma: while toppling Assad would isolate Iran, the rise of the MB would threaten the monarchy's politico-religious establishment. For Erdogan's Turkey, it would get to spread its influence through an MB regime.
Therefore, despite sharing a wish for Assad’s ouster, relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar are strained, and Doha and Riyadh have extended their support to different factions among the Syrian opposition. Saudi Arabia harboured a large number of MB members after the Brotherhood’s failed attempt to overthrow former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s. However, in light of the MB opting for standpoints opposing Riyadh, relations have soured. Qatar on the other hand has been supportive of MB’s rise to power in Egypt as well as in Tunisia in the wake of Presidents Mubarak and Ben Ali’s ouster following the Arab Spring uprisings. (For more information see information pertaining to each country respectively.)
Furthermore, Turkey has opposed the Government of Syria since the start of the conflict in 2011, leading to strained Turkish–Iranian ties. Moreover, while Turkish policies have been more and more pro-Sunni, Iran wields plenty of influence over the Shi’a/Alawite communities, which in light of the sectarian aspects of the Syrian war, increase the regional rivalries. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey were also strained, given that they tend to back different segments of the Syrian opposition. In addition to opposing the regime in Damascus, the Turkish Government was also concerned about the presence of Kurdish actors, notably PYD (Democratic Union Party) which is widely considered to be linked to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in Turkey, mainly located in Syria’s northeast. For more information on Turkey–PKK relations, Turkey: Kurdistan and the Syria: Rojava Kurdistan.
Indirect Involvement and Non-Lethal Reactions
The international community has not been able to reach any common ground concerning the situation in Syria. The UN Security Council has been beset by internal differences, disabling any decisive action to be carried out. The main issue has been the different analyses of the situation, where Russia and China have chosen a different path than the other members of the Security Council, vetoing resolutions calling for military intervention. The diverging opinions pertaining to action in Syria has thus far left the Security Council with its hands tied.
There have, however, been other types of reactions to the war:
The Arab League suspended Syria in November 2011 in protest against its violent suppression of the uprising, and in August 2012 the Organization of Islamic Countries also suspended Syria’s membership.
The European Union (EU) imposed a full arms embargo on Syria in May 2011 as a reaction to the harsh government crackdown on the protesters and the conflict that followed. Voices were heard from France and the UK that the moderate rebel groups were not receiving any help, while the regime received help from outside. It was argued that this would play into the hands of Islamist extremist groups, who enjoyed better resources. The embargo was lifted from June 2013 following British and French efforts. However, British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to secure the parliamentary support necessary to arm the rebels. In September French President Francois Hollande said France would support arming rebels provided this was done in a “controlled environment” in order to seek to avoid arming the extremist actors.
The US imposed sanctions on the government in 2011, and provided non-lethal aid (food, medical equipment). In June 2013, however, as the Obama administration said it had information that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons, a decision to send ammunition and small arms was made, and according to US officials light weapons shipments started in September 2013. For US coalition support see Iraq: government.
Peace Talks
A number of different peace initiatives have been taken over the course of the conflict. Local ceasefires have been reached and later been broken. One obstacle for negotiating a peace deal has been the diversity in the opposition, Syrian insurgents was not one coherent group and even though they shared the aim of ousting Assad little else united them. Another obstacle has been the diversity of the international actors involved, with for example EU, Russia, US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China having to agree on the way forward.
The first failed ceasefire attempt was the Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria in the spring of 2012 as the plan failed Kofi Annan stepped down in August 2012 as UN-Arab League envoy. Lakhdar Brahimi replaced him and he launched the Geneva II conference in early 2014. As this major effort also failed he resigned on 13 May 2014. Brahimi was replaced by Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura on 10 July 2014, and in early 2016, a new round of peacetalks, Geneva III, was held. The parties agreed to a new ceasefire that soon broke down. In early 2019 Geir Pedersen proceeded de Mistura and later that year, he headed new Geneva peace talks which included 150 Syrian representatives. The Geneva talks continued in 2020 and 2021, with a new constitution on the agenda.
In January 2017, Representatives from the Syrian Government and insurgents met in the Kazakh capital, Astana. The Russian, Turkish, and Iranian mediated talks managed to agree on four "de-escalation" zones across the country. Later on that year, the representatives agreed on expanding the de-escalation zones to include: Idlib, Latakia, Aleppo provinces and parts of Hama, Homs, Dara, and al Qunaitra, in addition to Eastern Ghouta. On 7 August 2019, the US and Turkey reached a deal to set up a buffer zone in northern Syria, to stop the Turkish-backed SNA operation against the SDF. Astana talks continued throughout 2018 and 2019 and reached a halt in 2020. In 2021, talks resumed in Kazakhstan's (renamed) capital Nur-Sultan as the 16th and 17th rounds of Astana talks were held there.
Decreasing levels of violence
In 2016, the government side supported by Russia and Iran started to put real pressure on the Syrian Insurgents. On 22 December, the government had taken complete control over Aleppo, one of the Syrian Insurgents' former strongholds. Fighting continued at a significantly lower level compared to previous years.The government gained control over previously rebel-held areas, including Eastern Ghouta and Daraa in 2018. Since then, most of the violence between the government of Syria and the Syrian insurgents have taken place in Idlib province. In 2021, the conflict dropped below the threshold of war (i.e. 1000 battle-related deaths during one year) for the first time since the start of the current conflict episode in 2011.
Fall of Assad
After years of military stalemate, Syria’s civil war took a decisive turn in November 2024 when rebel forces led by the HTS launched the rapid offensive "Deterrence of Aggression" from Idlib, capturing Aleppo and advancing toward Damascus. The operation exploited deep structural weaknesses in the Assad government’s military and the absence of meaningful support from its traditional allies, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, all of whom were distracted elsewhere or weakened by other conflicts. The Syrian army, plagued by corruption, fragmentation, and low morale, collapsed with little resistance. As rebel units pushed south, many soldiers deserted or switched sides, and the government’s front lines disintegrated. On 8 December, President Bashar al-Assad fled the country, ending 54 years of family rule. Crowds in Damascus celebrated the government’s collapse, while the HTS began asserting control in newly captured areas, including the capital.
