News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 16th December 2024
On December 8, 2024, the regime of Bashar al-Assad collapsed after a ten-day assault by rebel forces, starting with the rebels capturing Aleppo on November 30. The coalition of armed forces was spearheaded by the Islamist militant organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alongside the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA). The upheaval concluded more than fifty years of the Assad family’s governance in Syria and four years of mostly stagnant dynamics in the Syrian civil war, which has persisted since 2011. As the capital city, Damascus, fell to HTS and its allies, ousted President Assad escaped to Moscow. During the offensive, rebels released prisoners of the Assad regime while capturing new territory. Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah—historical backers of Assad’s regime—failed to provide substantial aid to his Syrian Arab Army (SA) amid the rebel assault. Simultaneously, the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), which govern portions of northeastern Syria, are still engaged in conflict with Arab tribes that allege discrimination by the group, while Turkey and its allies persist in assaults on Kurdish fighters. Divided combat has allowed the self-styled Islamic State to sustain a foothold and execute attacks. Moreover, Israel frequently targets Iranian and Syrian military sites in Syria and has escalated its assaults, including targeting the airports in Damascus and Aleppo, since Hamas’s assault on Israel in October 2023.
What started as demonstrations against President Assad’s administration in 2011 swiftly developed into a comprehensive conflict between the Syrian government—supported by Russia and Iran—and opposition rebel factions—supported by the United States along with various U.S. allies, such as France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three initiatives fueled the conflict: coalition actions to overcome the self-declared Islamic State, clashes between the Syrian government and rebel forces, and military actions against Syrian Kurds by Turkish troops. The Islamic State started taking control of land in Syria in 2013. Following a sequence of terrorist attacks orchestrated by the Islamic State throughout Europe in 2015, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France—backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and additional Arab allies—broadened their air operations in Iraq to encompass Syria.
Collectively, these countries have carried out more than eleven thousand air strikes targeting Islamic State positions in Syria, while the U.S.-led coalition has maintained its backing for the ground actions of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since 2016, Turkish forces have participated in ground operations targeting the Islamic State and have executed strikes against armed Kurdish factions in Syria. Simultaneously, responding to a request from the Syrian government in September 2015, Russia initiated air strikes on what it alleged were Islamic State positions, while Syrian government troops secured significant victories against the Islamic State, such as recapturing the city of Palmyra. The U.S.-led coalition opposing the Islamic State states that Iraqi security forces and the SDF have regained 98 percent of the land previously occupied by the group in Iraq and Syria, which includes the cities of Raqqa and Deir al-Zour.
Thanks to support from Russia and Iran, the Syrian government has consistently taken back territory from opposition forces, including the stronghold of the opposition in Aleppo in 2016. The government has faced accusations of deploying chemical weapons multiple times during the conflict, leading to global condemnation in 2013, 2017, and 2018. Opposition groups have retained minimal control in Idlib, located in northwestern Syria, and along the Iraq-Syria border. Nevertheless, the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake has rendered effective governance almost unachievable, with opposition forces struggling to fulfill the needs of the populace.
Attempts to achieve a diplomatic solution have not been fruitful. The Geneva peace talks regarding Syria, a UN-supported conference aimed at promoting a political transition led by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, have failed to achieve a political resolution, as opposition factions and officials from the Syrian regime find it difficult to agree on terms to resolve the conflict. A fresh series of peace discussions commenced in Geneva in May 2017 with an eighteen-member delegation from Syria, but has since come to a halt. In 2017, peace negotiations led by Russia in Astana, Kazakhstan, alongside Iran, Turkey, and representatives from Syria’s government and armed opposition produced a cease-fire accord and the creation of four de-escalation areas. Nevertheless, soon after the cease-fire was declared, assaults by Syrian government troops on opposition-controlled regions in the de-escalation zones recommenced.
During President Donald J. Trump’s administration, the United States significantly pulled back from Syria, maintaining only around 400 U.S. soldiers as a backup force. On January 16, 2019, a strike in Manbij attributed to the self-styled Islamic State resulted in the deaths of at least nineteen individuals, among them four Americans. Before that attack, only two Americans had died in combat in Syria since the start of the U.S.-led campaign. The international coalition led by the U.S. persists in conducting military operations against the remnants of the Islamic State and various Iranian-supported militias. The withdrawal of the majority of U.S. forces heightened uncertainty regarding the involvement of other external players in the conflict—such as Iran, Israel, Russia, and Turkey—and the prospects for internal participants.
Increasing Russian participation has been crucial for the Syrian government’s achievements in regaining land. Although Russia has officially claimed that it solely offers air support to the regime, it has dispatched the Wagner Group, a private military contractor, to engage in combat in Syria. Continuous violence and proxy conflicts have contributed to the revival of extremist organizations. At the same time, the humanitarian crisis in Syria is grave, with 7 in 10 Syrians needing humanitarian aid. As per the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it is estimated that over 600,000 individuals have died since the war began. In its 2023 Global Appeal, the United Nations stated that over 6.9 million people are presently internally displaced, and over 5.4 million are residing as refugees in other countries. Numerous refugees have sought refuge in Jordan and Lebanon, putting pressure on already fragile infrastructures and scarce resources. Over 3.4 million Syrians have sought safety in Turkey, with numerous individuals trying to find asylum in Europe.
On February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude quake and a 7.5 magnitude aftershock hit southeast Turkey and northwest Syria, marking one of the most severe natural disasters of this century. As of May 2023, estimates indicated the death toll was nearly 60,000, including 50,700 fatalities in Turkey and 8,400 in Syria. Syria’s twelve years of war have greatly obstructed its aid initiatives—the leader of the World Food Programme referred to the scenario as a “catastrophe upon catastrophe.” In Syria specifically, the earthquake is believed to have resulted in damages totaling $5.1 billion.
Efforts to respond to the earthquake were hindered by the territorial divisions arising from Syria’s civil conflict. The area in northwest Syria most impacted by the earthquake is controlled by rebel groups, and the Syrian government has historically limited access to this region. As a result, the Turkish government had to authorize international assistance to pass through the only humanitarian aid corridor connecting Syria and Turkey, referred to as the Bab al-Hawa crossing. Nonetheless, the earthquake severely impacted the roads connecting Turkey to Syria, and the Turkish government was preoccupied with its own disaster response activities. The initial United Nations aid convoy arrived in Bab al-Hawa on Thursday, February 9. On Friday, February 10, the Syrian government declared it would allow international aid organizations to reach rebel-controlled regions of Syria, yet did not specify a timeline for this access. In May 2023, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus to enhance economic collaboration—signifying the first trip of an Iranian president to Syria since the conflict began. Later in that month, the Arab League decided to readmit Syria following a twelve-year suspension, even with ongoing Western sanctions against President Assad’s regime that might discourage oil-rich Arab nations from investing in Syria.
During August 2023, the Syrian military faced numerous assaults from both the Islamic State and Israeli forces. Attacks by Islamic State sleeper cells in Syria, particularly in the extensive desert regions they previously governed, have risen throughout 2023. For instance, a vehicle transporting Syrian troops in the eastern desert region of Deir Ezzor was attacked by the Islamic State, resulting in the deaths of twenty-three. In early August, an Israeli missile strike near Damascus resulted in the deaths of at least four Syrian soldiers and injured four more. While Israel has conducted strikes against what it labels as Iran-associated targets in Syria for years, the frequency and extent have surged after the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel. Since December, Israeli attacks in and near Damascus have resulted in the deaths of over six members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including a senior Iranian intelligence officer. In contrast, militia groups in Syria and Iraq supported by Iran that are against Israel’s offensive in Gaza have targeted U.S. forces in the area at least 165 times since the onset of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Beginning in mid-October 2023, American bases in Iraq and Syria have faced assaults from these different factions. On November 23, forces from the U.S. and allied nations in northeastern Syria and Iraq experienced four drone and rocket attacks within a span of twenty-four hours. In February 2024, the U.S. carried out a number of retaliatory strikes in response to an assault in Jordan on a military outpost close to the Syrian border, resulting in the deaths of three U.S. soldiers. The attacks targeted over eighty-five locations across Iraq and Syria, but U.S. officials have indicated that these actions are just the beginning of their reaction.
