The Syrian conflict began in 2011 as an
internal uprising. It's now a proxy war between
major global powers. This war has killed more than
300,000 Syrians and torn 11 million
people from their homes. Forces allied to
President Bashar al-Assad have fought
against moderate rebels and more radical
groups opposed to his rule.
The conflict has led to the rise of ISIS,
drawn in some of the world's largest militaries,
and changed the region forever.
This is Syria's War.
Bashar al-Assad has managed to hold on to
power throughout the conflict.
The Assad family have led the ruling
Arab Socialist Baath party since 1971.
While most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, the
Assads are Alawites, a sect of the Shia
Muslim minority. Assad graduated from
medical school in 1988 before moving to
London. When his brother Bassel died in a
car accident in 1994, Assad's father,
Hafez, the then President, called him home.
Bashar al-assad joined the Syrian
military academy, rising through its
ranks as he prepared for the presidency.
After his father died of a heart attack
in July 2000, Bashar inherited power unchallenged.
Bashar was less popular than his younger brother and
father and many Syrians viewed him as weak and inept.
Once he took office, he promised
political and economic reform.
He suppressed the "Damascus Spring,"
a short-lived period of social debate and
political activism that followed the death of
his father. Over the next decade,
people grew disillusioned as Assad increasingly
turned Syria into an ever-more draconian
police state that cracked down on dissent.
At the beginning of 2011, pro-democracy protests
swept across Tunisia and Egypt,
in what became known as the Arab Spring.
By March the wave of protests reached
Syria, sparked by the arrest of young Syrians
accused of painting anti-Assad graffiti.
Peaceful, anti-government protests
spread to other Syrian cities,
like Homs, which became known as the
"capital of the revolution."
Assad blamed the protests on foreign
conspirators whom he said wanted to
disrupt the country's stability. He tried
to address the unrest in April by
releasing political prisoners and ending
48 years of emergency rule—closing state
security courts and allowing peaceful protest.
But soon Assad turned violent.
Soldiers began detaining and firing
on protesters, killing thousands of people,
according the U.N.
The Syrian opposition began to group
together and fight back,
as international leaders put pressure on
Assad to step down. In January 2012, he
vowed to stamp out terrorism and foreign-backed
rebels with an iron fist.
As the civil war dragged on, U.N envoy
Kofi Annan devised a peace plan.
It ultimately failed and he resigned in August 2012.
That same month U.S. President Barack Obama
warned Assad not to cross the red line
of using chemical weapons.
But the regime wasn't just
carrying at barrel bomb attacks on
Syrian rebels. Soon, reports of chemical
warfare began to emerge. A U.N. commission
reported three likely chemical weapons
attacks by the regime in 2013, the
deadliest in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August.
Regime forces dropped sarin gas
on opposition-held territory;
Estimates suggested more than 1,000
people were killed. The attack pushed the
international community to act.
In September 2013 Russia and the U.S. struck
a deal to ensure Syria would destroy its
chemical weapons. The U.N. announced the
program's completion in June 2014 but
later reported that regime chemical
attacks had continued. In 2016, a U.N.
investigative team blamed Syria for
at least three chemical weapons attacks in
2014 and 2015.
Allegations of armed rebel groups carrying out chemical
attacks have also surfaced, with rights groups
accusing both sides of committing war crimes.
But as Syria had given people
reason to worry about chemical weapons
for the first time in many years, it had
also given rise to a threat
potentially far more serious.
Assad released known extremists from
prison and looked the other way as those
jihadis grew more influential.
An Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front,
formed at the beginning of 2012.
It gained strong support in Syria and jihadis
from Iraq crossed into the country to help.
In 2013, some of the Nusra Front joined with
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's Islamic State in Iraq
to form the militant group known as ISIS.
From January 2014, ISIS captured
cities across Iraq and Syria and
announced the establishment of what they
called a caliphate, a purported state for
the world's Muslims with its capital in
the Syrian city of Raqqa.
Baghdadi declared himself leader of the caliphate.
Thousands of foreign citizens flocked to join ISIS.
Driven by a kind of medieval theology,
ISIS became known for carrying out
beheadings and lashings against
citizens living in the caliphate, and
for its slick propaganda videos
showing the execution of hostages.
The rise of the militant group helped Assad
to portray his regime as the lesser of two evils.
Syria had seemingly reached the point of no return.
The war has contributed to the biggest
refugee crisis since World War Two.
Almost 5 million people have fled Syria,
around half of them entering Turkey and
more than a million entering Lebanon.
Another 6.6 million Syrians are internally displaced.
Aid agencies and neighboring countries
are still struggling to cope with the fallout.
Smuggler's receive large sums of money
in return for taking desperate Syrians to
Europe's shores. Thousands of refugees
have died en route.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her country's
borders in the summer of 2015, ultimately
taking in more than a million asylum seekers that year.
After a three-year-old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi,
washed-up lifeless on a Turkish beach
in September 2015, his photograph
was shared around the world.
It pushed other European leaders to
address the crisis.
Events in Syria soon dragged international powers
into the conflict. In early August 2015,
Obama authorized airstrikes in Iraq to help
the Yazidis, a minority Kurdish groups stranded
on a mountain after ISIS overran the region.
Later that month, ISIS militants
murdered American journalist James Foley.
Soon after, a U.S.-led coalition launched
airstrikes in Syria. Washington, who had
been supporting moderate rebels, now backed
the Kurds in northern Syria also.
They were seen as the most effective fighting
force against ISIS. At the same time,
the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
Turkey provided support to Syrian rebels
battling Assad. After four years of war,
Assad's military was weakened. But the
turning point came in September 2015
when Russia entered the conflict.
The regime in Damascus was now
supported by Moscow, as well as by Iran
giving Assad the upper hand.
Moscow began conducting air raids
against opponents of the regime,
particularly in the northern city of Aleppo.
The U.S. criticized Russia for
strikes that killed hundreds of civilians,
accusing Moscow of undermining
hopes of a ceasefire. The regime soon
managed to recapture parts of Aleppo
from rebels. In July 2016,
250,000 people remain trapped under
siege in the rebel-held eastern
districts of the city. Russian jets
continued to pound Aleppo, claiming that
they were targeting terrorists.
In September 2016, Syrian troops along with
Shia militias launched a ground
offensive on Aleppo. Reports surfaced of
regime soldiers carrying out on-the-spot
executions of civilian men, women and
children inside the city. In December,
both sides agreed an evacuation deal,
facilitated by Turkey and Russia, and the
city fell back under government control.
The recapture of Aleppo was Assad's
most significant victory.
When Donald Trump became president
in January 2017, he inherited a problem that
had tormented his predecessor. Trump has
described Assad as "bad' but has condemned the
Obama administration for backing rebels who he says,
"could be ISIS."
Trump has also said he is open to
partnering with Moscow to fight the militants.
Whatever happens in Syria, the world will be watching.