A surprising advance by Syrian rebels ended Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long rule, with opposition forces taking the capital and forcing the president to flee on 8 December.
The overthrow adopted a 13-year civil conflict, which began after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests, killing greater than half 1,000,000 individuals and displacing tens of millions extra, and embroiled worldwide powers and their proxies.
The world is now watching to see how Syria’s political panorama shapes up after the overthrow of the Assad household’s half-century rule.
Those with a vested curiosity within the battle and the way forward for the nation embrace, on one facet, Russia and Iran – which backed Assad – and on the opposite, the US and Turkey, which supported totally different insurgent teams.
Here we discover how these nations, together with Israel, have performed a task in Syria – and will proceed to take action.
Turkey
During Syria’s civil conflict, Turkey has supported opposition forces – primarily the Syrian National Army (SNA) – by offering arms, army and political help.
Syria’s northern neighbour has principally been involved with utilizing rebels to comprise the Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey accuses of being an extension of a domestically banned Kurdish insurgent group. Turkey additionally desires the roughly three million Syrian refugees residing in its nation to return dwelling.
The YPG is the largest militia in one other insurgent group, the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.
During the conflict, Turkish troops and allied rebels seized stretches of territory from these teams alongside Syria’s northern border.
Turkey has additionally been politically concerned. In 2020, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the federal government to retake Idlib, the rebels’ stronghold within the north-west.
Idlib has been administered since 2017 underneath a so-called authorities by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the rebels that ultimately overthrew Assad.
Many imagine the offensive couldn’t have occurred with out Turkey’s blessing. Turkey has denied backing HTS.
Meanwhile, battle in Syria’s north continues: As Assad fell, the SNA launched a separate assault on areas held by the SDF.
Russia
Russia already had a decades-long relationship with the Assad authorities, and had army bases there earlier than the civil conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his nation’s presence in Syria, and help of Assad, to problem the facility and dominance of the West within the area.
In 2015, Russia launched an air marketing campaign and despatched 1000’s of troops in help of the Assad regime.
In return, Russia obtained 49-year leases on an air base and naval base, which supplied essential hubs within the japanese Mediterranean for transferring army contractors out and in of Africa.
This marked an necessary stage in Russia’s try to claim itself as a worldwide energy, beforehand focusing its efforts on nations that had been as soon as within the Soviet bloc.
But combating a conflict in Ukraine since 2022 preoccupied Assad’s ally, contributing to the Syrian army’s swift defeat to insurgent teams in late November and early December.
Assad and his household had been granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus, Russian media reported.
US
After Syria’s pro-democracy protests in 2011 had been met with power, then US-president Barack Obama criticised the Assad authorities – however the US solely grew to become concerned militarily with a view to fight the Islamic State (IS).
A US-led international coalition has carried out air strikes and deployed particular forces since 2014 to assist the Kurdish-led insurgent alliance SDF seize territory as soon as held by IS militants within the north-east.
After the Assad authorities fell, the US authorities stated it performed dozens of air strikes in opposition to IS camps and operatives in central Syria to make sure IS couldn’t benefit from the unstable state of affairs.
However, President-elect Donald Trump, who takes workplace in January, stated Syria is a “mess” the US ought to keep out of. When Trump was president in 2019, he withdrew US troops from Syria, a transfer his officers progressively rowed again.
The US at present has round 900 troops in Syria.
Iran
Iran and Syria have been allies since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Syria backed Iran in the course of the Iran-Iraq conflict within the Eighties.
During the Syrian civil conflict, Iran is believed to have deployed a whole lot of troops and spent billions of {dollars} to assist Assad.
Thousands of Shia Muslim fighters armed, skilled and financed by Iran – principally from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah motion, but in addition from Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen – have additionally fought alongside the Syrian military.
But just like Russia, Hezbollah has been weakened by battle with Israel in Lebanon, probably hastening the downfall of the Syrian army.
Israel
Israel shares a border with Syria. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel seized the Golan Heights, about 60km (40 miles) south of Damascus, from Syria, earlier than annexing it in 1981. The annexation shouldn’t be recognised by the UN and lots of different nations.
Israel has performed air strikes in opposition to Iran-linked targets in Syria in the course of the conflict, though it hardly ever acknowledges such strikes.
Since rebels overthrew Assad, Israel has carried out a whole lot of assaults throughout Syria. Targets embrace Syria’s army infrastructure, naval fleet, and weapons manufacturing websites.
Israel stated it’s appearing to cease weapons falling “into the palms of extremists”.
Israeli forces have additionally seized the demilitarised buffer zone within the Golan Heights and should have strayed into close by Syrian territory.
BBC Verify geolocated a picture of an IDF soldier standing simply over half a kilometre past the buffer zone, inside Syria on a hillside close to the village of Kwdana.
