The government has regained control of Syria's biggest cities, but large parts of the country are still held by rebels, jihadists and the Kurdish-led SDF. The last remaining opposition stronghold is in the north-western province of Idlib and adjoining parts of northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces. The region is dominated by a jihadist alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham HTS , but is also home to mainstream rebel factions.
An estimated 2. In March , Russia and Turkey brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib. There has been a relative calm since then, but it could break down at any moment. In the country's north-east, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the SDF in October to create a "safe zone" clear of Kurdish YPG militia along the Syrian side of the border, and have occupied a km 75 miles long stretch since.
To halt the assault the SDF struck a deal with the Syrian government that saw the Syrian army return to the Kurdish-administered region for the first time in seven years. The government has vowed to eventually regain full control of it.
It does not look like it will anytime soon, but everyone agrees a political solution is required. Nine rounds of UN-mediated peace talks - known as the Geneva II process - failed to make progress, with President Assad apparently unwilling to negotiate with political opposition groups that insist he must step down as part of any settlement.
Russia, Iran and Turkey set up parallel political talks known as the Astana process in An agreement was reached the following year to form a member committee to write a new constitution, leading to free and fair elections supervised by the UN. But in January , UN special envoy Geir Pedersen lamented that they had not even begun drafting any reforms.
Mr Pedersen also noted that, with five foreign armies active in Syria, the international community could not pretend the solutions to the conflict were only in the hands of the Syrians. Image source, Reuters. How did the Syrian war start? Image source, AFP.
How many people have died? Who's involved? How has the country been affected? Who is in control of the country now? Will the war ever end? Ghassan Hitto stepped down as the prime minister of the opposition Syrian National Coalition in early July.
He held the post for less than four months. Hitto made little progress in leading the rebels, and efforts to garner aid from the West fell short of expectations. His resignation came just days after Amad Jarba, a tribal leader from the northeastern part of the country, was elected president of the coalition. In September, the coalition elected Ahmad Saleh Touma, a dentist and political activist, as interim prime minister. As the opposition showed signs of fracturing, Sunni versus Shiite violence intensified, and Assad's forces held on to Damascus, most of central Syria, and cities in the north with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah, the U.
In addition, support for the rebels began to wane when the Nusra Front, a radical Islamist militant group linked to al-Qaeda, joined the fight against Assad.
On Aug. Gruesome, graphic images in the media showed victims foaming at the mouth and twitching and lines of covered corpses. The opposition said as many as 1, people died in the attack. The government denied it launched a chemical attack. Secretary of State John Kerry called the attack a "moral obscenity" and an "indiscriminate slaughter of civilians.
Inspectors were cleared to investigate the site, and their convoy was fired on by snipers en route. They did gain access to the affected areas and took samples for testing. President Obama said on Aug. However, on Aug. The intelligence summary reported that the military had been preparing for the attack for three days prior to the launch.
Obama surprised many on September 1, when he announced that he would seek Congressional approval for a military action. On Sept. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted, 10 to 7, to authorize the action. In the following days, Obama attempted to rally support for the strike, but both the public and Congress expressed increasing reluctance for military action.
A diplomatic solution was back on the table on Sept. Russia took the proposal seriously, and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said, "If the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus. And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.
It was the first time the Syrian government acknowledged it had chemical weapons, and the country applied to join the the Chemical Weapons Convention. Given the uncertainty of Congressional authorization, diplomacy would spare Obama a potential rebuke that could undercut his authority for the remainder of his presidency. In particular, two rockets were fired from Mount Qasioun, an area in Damascus that protects Assad's presidential palace.
The five permanent members of the Security Council agreed on a resolution on Sept. The agreement set several benchmarks Syria must meet before the deadline. If Syria fails to comply, then the Security Council will reconvene to determine repercussions, which could include military action or sanctions.
The timetable is extremely aggressive; such disarmament typically takes years, not months. While the agreement delayed a Congressional vote on a military strike, the U.
UN officials arrived in Syria in early October and began destroying equipment used to produce the chemical weapons.
The fragile coalition of opposition groups further splintered in late September , when 11 rebel groups announced that they would no longer recognize the Syrian National Coalition, the dissident leadership that is based in Turkey.
Instead, the groups said they would work together to establish sharia , or Islamic law, in Syria. The move signaled the rising power of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda? In December, the U. By December, the humanitarian crisis in Syria had worsened, with both rebels and government troops blocking the delivery of much-needed food and medical aid to civilians. The death toll had reached nearly , and some 3 million people had fled to other countries in the region.
In January , an enormous trove of images that revealed the unspeakable torture and starvation of thousands of civilians who had been held in Syrian jails were leaked to the media. The photographs had been smuggled out of Syria by a Syrian police photographer and handed over to the Qatari government.
If authenticated, the images will likely be used as evidence of human rights violations in a trial against Assad. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS , which continued to over-run rebel-held areas in northern Syria throughout , started to face challenges from other rebel groups in Syria as a result of its brutal tactics and its focus on instituting its strict brand of Islam over ousting Assad.
In January , the Nusra Front joined with other rebels groups to drive ISIS from several cities, dealing the group a significant defeat. But the rebels' fight against ISIS compromised their war with government troops. However, ISIS recovered and by late summer, it had taken over areas in Aleppo province previously held by the rebels. Much-anticipated negotiations brokered by the UN between the Syrian government, members of the opposition, the U.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited Iran at the last minute but then quickly uninvited Syria's closest ally when it refused to accept terms of the talks requiring Assad to step aside and allow for the formation of a transition government. While there was little hope for a peace agreement, just getting the parties to the table was considered progress. The UN succeeded where the negotiators failed and brokered a cease-fire between the Syrian government and rebels to allow the evacuatation of civilians from Homs who were stuck in the besieged city, cut off from humanitarian aid.
A second round of talks opened in Geneva in February and ended? They did nothing except continue to drop barrel bombs on their own people and continue to destroy their own country," said U.
The government placed members of the opposition coalition on a list of terrorists and said the first step in the peace process must be ending terrorism. The opposition's top priority is setting up a transitional government, and presented a road map to put such a framework in place. The proposal did not specifically mention ousting Assad. The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution in late February requiring that Syria allow relief agencies into the country to deliver humanitarian aid without attempting to impede or attack them.
Addressing concerns of both the government and the opposition, the resolution also condemned the use of barrel bombs and terrorist attacks. While the resolution does not threaten sanctions for non-compliance Russia would not have voted in favor of the resolution if it had , it does say "further steps" would be taken if the Syrian government is in violation. In March , government troops, with the help of Hezbollah, recaptured from the rebels the city of Yabroud, which is on the border with Lebanon and has been a key route for supplies from Lebanon.
It was the last rebel stronghold in the area, handing the opposition another defeat. The fall of Yabroud followed that of Zara, another strategic city on the Lebanese border. However, votes were cast only in areas under government control as the opposition boycotted the election. President Obama and many other western leaders denounced the election as illegitimate.
Days after the election, Assad said he would grant amnesty to prisoners involved in the uprising who have been detained for "all crimes other than terrorism. Syria handed over the last of its declared chemical weapons in late June , just making the deadline set in September While the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons praised Syria for complying, especially during war time, it cautioned that Syria has yet to destroy its chemical weapon production facilities and there may still be undeclared weapons in the country.
It is also investigating reports that Syria dropped bombs containing chlorine. While chlorine is not a banned substance, use of it as a weapon would violate the international chemical weapons treaty it signed in As ISIS intensified its attacks in Iraq, took over large swaths of northern Iraq and Syria, and beheaded two American journalists, President Barack Obama said in September that he had authorized airstrikes against ISIS and would work with allies in the region to retake areas under ISIS control and decimate the terrorist group, which he has referred to as a "cancer.
He also asked Congress to authorize money to fund and train moderate rebel groups in Syria to aid in the fight, which it did in late September. Bush to use "necessary and appropriate force" against those involved in the Sept. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies. Airstrikes began in Syria on Sept. Central Command. The Obama administration made clear that because the U.
The influx of refugees created a humanitarian crisis, and prompted Turkey to seal the border with Syria. After five months of fighting, the Kurds? The victory came at an enormous cost, as the city was devastated by ISIS militants and the airstrikes.
The talks started the day after a suicide attack in Damascus killed more than 70 people. ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attack, was not invited to the talks.
Members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government traveled to Geneva to participate along with major opposition groups. However, two days later, the U. During the press conference announcing the suspension, U. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said, "I have concluded, frankly, that after the first week of preparatory talks there is more work to be done, not only by us but by the stakeholders. I'm not prepared to have talks for the sake of talks.
At a donor conference in London on Feb. The money would go toward helping the millions of people who have been forced to flee Syria because of the civil war. The Syrian government and the opposition reached a truce agreement on Feb. Under the terms of the deal, which was brokered by the United States and Russia, both sides agreed to a "cessation of hostilities," government-led forces will end their siege of rebel-held towns, and humanitarian aid will be delivered to those cities, which had been cut off from delivery of food and medicine.
They are two most extremist groups involved in the 5-year-long civil war. Few were optimistic the deal would hold. Government Republic under a military regime since March History Ancient Syria was conquered by Egypt about B. Regional Conflicts Continue Through the End of the Century In , President Assad ruled out any possibility of legalizing opposition political parties. Ford was quickly confronted with Government Forces Crack Down on Protesters The anti-government protest movement that swept through the Middle East in early also engulfed Syria.
Diplomatic Effort to End Violence Stymied by Security Council Vetoes As the fighting dragged on, several thousand soldiers defected and joined the Free Syrian Army, which was intensifying its attacks on government forces.
Syria Sinks into Civil War The situation in Syria continued to deteriorate in the summer of , with ongoing attacks against civilians? Opposition Forms New Governing Body In November , Syria's opposition groups agreed to form a new governing body that will unify the many rebel groups under one umbrella.
In , the Ottoman Empire conquered Syria and remained in power until British and Arab troops captured Damascus and Aleppo in , and the French took control of modern-day Syria and Lebanon in These arrangements put an end to roughly years of Ottoman rule in the region.
The French reign led to uprisings and revolts among the people in Syria. In , France and Syria negotiated a treaty of independence, which allowed Syria to remain independent but gave France military and economic power. Syria joined with Egypt and became the United Arab Republic in , but the union split a few short years later in The s brought more military coups, revolts and riots. In , the Arab Socialist Baath Party, which was active throughout the Middle East since the late s, seized power of Syria in a coup known as the Baath Revolution.
Conflict over this coveted area continued for years and is still ongoing. He remained in power as president for 30 years, until his death in Hafez al-Assad was part of the Islam Alawite, which is a minority Shiite sect.
During his presidency, Hafez was credited with strengthening the Syrian military with the help of the Soviets. Syria and Egypt went to war with Israel in Shortly after this conflict, Syria also got involved in the civil war in Lebanon, where it has maintained a military presence ever since. In , the Muslim Brotherhood organized a rebellion against the Assad regime in the city of Hama, and Assad responded by arresting, torturing and executing political rebels. Estimates vary, but many experts believe the retaliation took the lives of about 20, civilians.
The same year, Israel invaded Lebanon and attacked the Syrian army stationed there. But by , Israel and Lebanon announced that the hostility between the two countries was over. Toward the end of his life, Hafez attempted to make more peaceful relations with Israel and Iraq. After Bashar took power, the constitution was amended to reduce the minimum age of the president from 40 to At the start of his presidency, Bashar al-Assad released political prisoners, and Syrians were hopeful that their new leader would grant more freedoms and impose less oppression than his father.
The Syrian government was also accused of being involved in the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, in After a few years of what seemed like potential diplomacy between Assad and other nations, the United States renewed sanctions against Syria in , saying that the regime supported terrorist groups.
Many human rights groups reported that Assad regularly tortured, imprisoned and killed political adversaries throughout his presidency. In March of , a group of teens and children were arrested and tortured for writing anti-government graffiti that was thought to be inspired by the Arab Spring rebellion.