Syrian Civil War: From the 2011 Uprising to the Fall of Assad

The Syrian Civil War was a multi-sided conflict that began with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011 and ended, in its original form, with the collapse of his government on 8 December 2024. Over more than 13 years it drew in Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States and jihadist movements including the Islamic State. Estimates of the dead range from about 500,000 to more than 600,000, and more than half of Syria’s pre-war population was forced from home, creating the largest refugee crisis of the early 21st century.

Background: the Assad state

Syria had been ruled by the Ba’ath Party since a coup in 1963, and a state of emergency suspending many legal rights had been in force ever since. Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 and ruled until his death in 2000. His regime relied heavily on the security services and on officers from his own Alawite minority, and it crushed an Islamist uprising in the city of Hama in 1982 at the cost of many thousands of lives.

His son Bashar al-Assad succeeded him in 2000. Early hopes of political reform, the so-called Damascus Spring, faded within a year. Economic liberalisation enriched a narrow elite while unemployment remained high, and a severe drought from about 2006 to 2010 drove hundreds of thousands of rural people into poor suburbs of the cities.

From protest to armed uprising (2011-2012)

The uprisings of the Arab Spring toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. In the southern city of Daraa, the arrest and reported torture of a group of teenagers accused of writing anti-government graffiti caused public outrage. Protests in Damascus on 15 March and in Daraa on 18 March, when security forces killed several demonstrators, are usually taken as the start of the uprising.

Demonstrations spread to Homs, Hama, Baniyas and the Damascus suburbs. The government lifted the emergency law in April 2011 but met the protests with live fire, mass arrests and military sieges of rebellious towns. In July 2011 defecting officers announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army. By 2012 the conflict had become a civil war, with rebel groups seizing territory in the north, around Damascus and in the south. In July 2012 fighting reached Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, which was divided between government and rebel sectors for more than four years.

The opposition was never unified. Its political bodies in exile, the Syrian National Council and later the National Coalition, had limited control over hundreds of local armed groups. Islamist factions grew stronger, among them the Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Chemical weapons and the internationalised war (2013-2015)

On 21 August 2013 rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin struck rebel-held suburbs of eastern Ghouta near Damascus. United Nations inspectors confirmed sarin use; estimates of the dead range from several hundred to about 1,400. The United States had called chemical weapons use a “red line” but, after Congress hesitated, agreed a deal with Russia under which Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and handed over its declared stockpile for destruction in 2013-2014. Later investigations nevertheless attributed further attacks to the government, including a sarin attack on Khan Shaykhun in April 2017, after which the United States launched cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.

Outside powers backed rival sides. Iran and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah sent advisers and fighters to support Assad. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplied various rebel groups, while the United States ran limited and largely unsuccessful programmes to arm and train vetted rebels.

The decisive intervention came from Russia. On 30 September 2015 Russian aircraft began a bombing campaign that, combined with Iranian-backed ground forces, turned the war in the government’s favour.

The Islamic State and the Kurdish north

The chaos allowed the jihadist group that became the Islamic State (ISIS) to expand from Iraq into eastern Syria. In June 2014 its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” across large parts of both countries, with the Syrian city of Raqqa as its de facto capital. The group carried out mass executions, enslaved Yazidi women and destroyed ancient monuments at Palmyra (see Rise of ISIS).

A US-led coalition began airstrikes in Syria in September 2014. On the ground its main partner became the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), formed in 2015 and led by the Kurdish YPG militia, which had held the town of Kobani against an ISIS siege in 2014-2015. The SDF captured Raqqa in October 2017, and the last ISIS-held village, Baghuz, fell in March 2019. Turkey, which regards the YPG as linked to the PKK insurgency, launched several military operations into northern Syria between 2016 and 2019 to push Kurdish forces back from the border.

The government’s recovery and a frozen conflict (2016-2023)

With Russian air power, government forces and their allies retook eastern Aleppo in December 2016 after a long siege that devastated the old city. Eastern Ghouta and the southern province of Daraa followed in 2018. Many rebels and civilians were bussed under negotiated deals to the north-western province of Idlib, which became the last major opposition stronghold, dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that had broken away from al-Qaeda.

A Russian-Turkish ceasefire in March 2020 largely froze the front lines. Syria was effectively partitioned: the government held most of the population, the SDF held the north-east with US support, Turkish-backed factions held strips of the north, and HTS governed Idlib. United Nations peace efforts, led successively by Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, Staffan de Mistura and others, achieved little. The economy collapsed under war damage, sanctions and the Lebanese financial crisis, and the 2023 earthquake added thousands more deaths in the north-west.

The fall of Assad (November-December 2024)

On 27 November 2024 HTS and allied factions launched an offensive from Idlib. Assad’s allies were weakened: Russia was absorbed by its war in Ukraine, and Hezbollah had suffered heavy losses in its 2024 war with Israel. Government defences collapsed. Aleppo fell within days, followed by Hama on 5 December and Homs on 7-8 December, while separate rebel groups advanced from the south.

On 8 December 2024 opposition forces entered Damascus. Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, where he was granted asylum, ending more than 50 years of rule by his family. Crowds opened prisons such as Saydnaya, notorious for torture and executions. HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, became head of a transitional authority.

The main actors

The government. Bashar al-Assad’s forces, the Syrian Arab Army and pro-government militias known as the National Defence Forces, held the capital and most major cities for much of the war. Their strength lay in air power, heavy artillery and the loyalty of the security services, but by 2015 they were badly overstretched and depended on foreign allies.

The armed opposition. The rebellion was never a single army. The Free Syrian Army was an umbrella label for many local brigades, while Islamist coalitions such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam became powerful after 2013. The Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, rebranded several times and eventually became Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The Kurds. In the north-east the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its militia, the YPG, took control of mostly Kurdish areas from 2012 and set up a self-governing administration, which later expanded into Arab-majority areas captured from ISIS.

Foreign powers. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah backed the government; Turkey, Gulf states and Western countries supported various rebel factions at different times; and the United States led the air war against ISIS. Israel carried out hundreds of strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria.

Human cost

The war produced one of the gravest humanitarian disasters of modern times. Estimates of total deaths range from about 500,000 to more than 600,000; a 2022 UN human rights report documented about 307,000 civilian deaths in the first ten years alone. Tens of thousands of people disappeared in government detention.

At the peak, around 6.5-6.8 million Syrians were refugees abroad and roughly 6-7 million were internally displaced. Turkey hosted more than 3.5 million refugees, Lebanon over 1 million and Jordan around 650,000 registered refugees. The movement of Syrians towards Europe in 2015 was a major part of the European migrant crisis, with Germany eventually receiving some 800,000 or more Syrians.

The main estimates are summarised below.

Timeline

• 2011, 15-18 March: Protests in Damascus and Daraa mark the start of the uprising.
• 2011, July: Defecting officers announce the Free Syrian Army.
• 2012, July: Fighting reaches Aleppo and Damascus.
• 2013, 21 August: Sarin attack on eastern Ghouta kills hundreds.
• 2014, 29 June: The Islamic State declares a caliphate across Syria and Iraq.
• 2015, 30 September: Russia begins airstrikes in support of the government.
• 2016, December: Government forces retake eastern Aleppo.
• 2019, March: The SDF captures Baghuz, the last ISIS-held territory.
• 2024, 27 November: HTS-led offensive begins from Idlib.
• 2024, 8 December: Rebels enter Damascus; Assad flees to Moscow.

Why it matters

The Syrian Civil War reshaped the Middle East. It gave rise to the Islamic State’s caliphate, brought Russia back as a major military power in the region, sent millions of refugees into neighbouring countries and Europe, and tested international norms on chemical weapons and the protection of civilians. Its end in 2024 left Syria facing the immense task of rebuilding a shattered country.