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Syrian civil war
Part of the Arab Spring
File:قسم متظاهري إدلب جمعة متظاهري حماة (Idlib protesters).jpg Demonstration in Idlib
Date 15 March 2011 (2011-03-15) – ongoing (13 years, 9 months and 2 weeks) Location Syria Status ongoing conflict
Belligerents
Syrian Arab Republic Syrian Armed Forces Syrian Army Syrian Navy Syrian Air Force Republican Guard General Security Directorate Political Security Directorate Shabiha File:Hezbollah Flag.jpg Hezbollah Economic and military support:  Iran	Syrian opposition Free Syrian Army Syrian Liberation Army Liwaa Al-Umma Economic and military support:  Kosovo  Qatar  Saudi Arabia  Turkey  United Kingdom (communications equipment)  United States (coordination of weapons supply and tactical advice)Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). Mujahideen Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant al-Qaeda in Iraq Fatah al-Islam Ahrar al-Sham Sukur al-Sham Kurdish Supreme Committee Popular Protection Units Military support from: Iraqi Kurdistan Peshmerga
Commanders and leaders
Bashar al-Assad President of Syria Wael Nader al-Halqi Prime Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij Minister of Defense Dawoud Rajiha † Minister of Defense (August 2011 – July 2012) Ali Abdullah Ayyoub Chief of Army Staff Maher al-Assad Republican Guard Commander Namir al-Assad Shabiha leader Assef Shawkat † Deputy Defense Minister (September 2011 – July 2012) Ali Mamlouk National Security Minister Rustum Ghazaleh Political Security Directorate Mohammad al-Shaar Interior Minister Walid Muallem Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister Hisham Bekhityar † Intelligence head (until July 2012) Hassan Turkmani † Deputy Vice President (until July 2012)	Abdulbaset Sieda Syrian National Council (SNC) Chairman Burhan Ghalioun Former SNC Chairman (August 2011 – June 2012) Riad al-Asaad Free Syrian Army Commander Mustafa al-Sheikh Higher Military Council Head Ali al-Bayanouni Muslim Brotherhood Leader Haitham al-Maleh Council of Syrian Revolutionary Trustees Head Abdul Razzaq Tlass Farouq Battalion Commander Riyad Farid Hijab Former Prime Minister (23 June 2012 – 6 August 2012) Abdul Halim Khaddam Vice President of Syria (March 1984– June 2005) File:Liwaa Al-Umma logo.png Mahdi al-Harati Liwaa Al-Umma commander (Libyan volunteer) Abu Muhammad al-Julani Al-Nusra Front leader Salih Muslim Kurdish Democratic Union Party Head Abdul Hakim Bashar Kurdish National Concil Head
Strength
Syrian Armed Forces: 304,000 (at peak) General Security Directorate: 8,000 Shabiha militiamen: 10,000 fighters	40,000–60,000 fighters 18,000–30,000 defectors File:Liwaa Al-Umma logo.png 6,000 Liwaa Al-Umma fighters (including 600 foreigners) 500–900 foreign Mujahideen
Casualties and losses
Syrian security forces 5,923 soldiers and policemen killed, 97 militiamen killed File:Hezbollah Flag.jpg Hezbollah 147 allegedly killed Iranian Basij 85 allegedly killed	Syrian rebels and protesters 5,634 fighters* (see here) and 979–1,837 protesters killed, 28,080 protesters and fighters captured Foreign Mujahideen 38 killed
23,337–23,442 Syrians killed overall (opposition claims)** 265 foreign civilians (see here) and 2 Turkish F4 Phantom pilots killed 1.5 million displaced and refugees
Number possibly higher due to the opposition counting rebels that were not defectors as civilians. **Numbers do not include foreign combatants from both sides or Shabiha militiamen who have been killed.

The Syrian civil war, also referred to as the Syrian uprising, is an ongoing internal armed political conflict in Syria. The conflict began on 15 March 2011 with public demonstrations as part of the wider Arab Spring and developed into a nationwide uprising, and a civil war in 2012. Protesters have demanded the end to nearly five decades of Ba’ath Party rule, as well as the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad.

In the spring of 2011, the Syrian government deployed the Syrian Army to quell the uprising. Several cities have been besieged, and soldiers were reportedly ordered to open fire on civilians. According to witnesses, soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were summarily executed by the Syrian Army. Civilians and army defectors began forming fighting units, and unified under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, fighting in an increasingly organized fashion; however, the civilian component of the armed opposition lacks an organized leadership. UN representatives have acknowledged terrorism as an aspect in the conflict, along with the Syrian government which characterizes the insurgency as "armed terrorist groups".

According to various sources, including the United Nations, up to 23,335–30,850 people have been killed, of which about half were civilians, but also including 11,930 armed combatants consisting of both the Syrian army and rebel forces and up to 1,840 opposition protesters. According to the UN, about 1.5 million Syrians have been displaced within the country. To escape the violence, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled the country to neighboring Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. No Syrian refugees have yet arrived at the Israeli border. In addition, tens of thousands of protesters have been imprisoned, and there have been reports of widespread torture in the government's prisons. International organizations have also accused the government and Shabiha of using civilians as human shields, of intentionally targeting civilians and of adopting a scorched earth policy. Anti-government rebels have been accused of human rights abuses as well, including torture, kidnapping, unlawful detention and execution of civilians, Shabiha, and soldiers. HRW also expressed concern at the kidnapping of Iranian nationals. The UN Commission of Inquiry has also documented abuses of this nature, and also has documentation that indicates rebel forces have been responsible for displacement of civilians.

The Arab League, United States, European Union, GCC states, and other countries have condemned the use of violence against the protesters. China and Russia have opposed attempts to agree to a UN resolution condemning Assad's actions, and advised against sanctions, saying that such methods could escalate into foreign intervention. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership over the government's response to the crisis, but sent an observer mission in December 2011, as part of its proposal for peaceful resolution of the crisis. A further attempt to resolve the crisis has been made through the appointment of Kofi Annan as a special envoy. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had repeatedly stated that the Syrian conflict could emerge into an "all-out civil war".

On 15 July 2012 the International Committee of the Red Cross assessed the Syrian conflict as a "non-international armed conflict" (the ICRC's legal term for civil war), thus applying the international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions in Syria.

Background

History

Part of a series on
Ba'athism
Organizations Arab Ba'ath 1940–1947 Arab Ba'ath Movement 1940–1947 Ba'ath Party 1947–1966 Baath Party (pro-Iraqi) 1968–2003 Baath Party (pro-Syrian) 1966–present
Variants Neo-Ba'athism 1966–2024 Saddamism 1979–2003
People Zaki al-Arsuzi Michel Aflaq Salah al-Din al-Bitar Abdullah Rimawi Wahib al-Ghanim Fuad al-Rikabi Salah Jadid Hafez al-Assad Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr Saddam Hussein Bashar al-Assad Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri
Literature On the Way of Resurrection The Battle for One Destiny The Genius of Arabic in Its Tongue
History Ba'athist Iraq Ramadan Revolution November 1963 coup d'état 17 July Revolution 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge Iran–Iraq War Gulf War UN sanctions Iraq War De-Ba'athification Ba'athist Syria Syrian Committee to Help Iraq 1963 / 1966 coup d'états Corrective Revolution Intervention in Lebanon Syrian occupation of Lebanon Syrian civil war Fall of the Assad regime
Regional organizations Algeria pro-Iraq pro-Syria Bahrain pro-Iraq pro-Syria Egypt pro-Iraq pro-Syria Iraq pro-Iraq pro-Syria Jordan pro-Iraq pro-Syria Kuwait pro-Iraq Lebanon pro-Iraq pro-Syria Libya pro-Iraq Mauritania pro-Iraq pro-Syria Palestine pro-Iraq pro-Syria Sudan pro-Iraq pro-Syria Syria pro-Iraq pro-Syria Tunisia pro-Iraq pro-Syria Yemen pro-Iraq pro-Syria
Splinter groups Arab Socialist Revolutionary Ba'ath Party 1960–1962/63 Socialist Lebanon 1965–1970 Arab Revolutionary Workers Party 1966–present Democratic Socialist Arab Ba'ath Party 1970–present Sudanese Ba'ath Party 2002–present
Armed groups Arab Liberation Front Al-Awda Al-Abud Network Jeish Muhammad Rejectionists Snake Party Supreme Command for Jihad and Liberation Naqshbandi Army General Military Council for Iraqi Revolutionaries Free Iraqi Army
Related topics Arab nationalism Arab socialism Assadist-Saddamist conflict Nasserism Pan-Arabism Unity, Freedom, Socialism
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Syria became an independent republic in 1946. In March 1949, democratic rule was overturned by an American-supported coup. Two more military coups took place that same year. A popular uprising against military rule in 1954 catalyzed a mutiny that saw the army transfer power to civilians. Free elections resulted in Shukri al-Quwatli, who had been the President at the time of the March 1949 coup, to be elected to that post in 1955. A brief union with Egypt in 1958 resulted in Syria's parliamentary system being replaced by a highly centralized presidential system. The union ended in 1961 with Syria's secession. A 1963 military coup d'état brought the Ba'ath Party to power, and was followed by another coup in 1966 which overthrew the traditional leaders of the party; Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. In 1970, then Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad seized power and declared himself President, a position he would hold until his death in 2000. Since then, the Ba'ath Party has remained the sole authority in Syria, and Syrian citizens may only approve the President by referendum and do not hold multi-party elections for the legislature. In 1982, at the height of a six-year Islamist insurgency throughout the country, Assad conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama to quell an uprising by the Sunni Islamist community, including the Muslim Brotherhood and others. This became known as the Hama massacre, which left tens of thousands dead.

The issue of Hafez al-Assad's succession prompted the 1999 Latakia protests, when violent protests and armed clashes erupted following 1998 People's Assembly's Elections. The violent events were an explosion of a long-running feud between Hafez al-Assad and his younger brother Rifaat. Two people were killed in fire exchanges between Syrian police and Rifaat's supporters during a police crack-down on Rifaat's port compound in Latakia. According to opposition sources, denied by the government, the protests resulted in hundreds of dead and injured. Hafez al-Assad died one year later, from pulmonary fibrosis. He was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, who was appointed after a constitutional amendment lowered the age requirement for President from 40 to his age of 34.

Bashar al-Assad, who speaks fluent English and whose wife is British-born, initially inspired hopes for reform; a "Damascus Spring" of intense political and social debate took place from July 2000 to August 2001. The period was characterized by the emergence of numerous political forums or salons where groups of like minded people met in private houses to debate political and social issues. Political activists such as Riad Seif, Haitham al-Maleh, Kamal al-Labwani, Riyad al-Turk and Aref Dalila were important in mobilizing the movement. The most famous of the forums were the Riad Seif Forum and the Jamal al-Atassi Forum. The Damascus Spring ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. Renewed opposition activity occurred in October 2005 when activist Michel Kilo collaborated with other leading opposition figures to launch the Damascus Declaration, which criticized the Syrian government as "authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish" and called for democratic reform.

Several riots prompted increased tension in Syria's Kurdish areas since 2004. That year, riots broke out against the government in the northeastern city of Qamishli. During a chaotic soccer match, some people raised Kurdish flags, and the match turned into a political conflict. In a brutal reaction by Syrian police and clashes between Kurdish and Arab groups, at least 30 people were killed, with some claims indicating a casualty count of about 100 people. Occasional clashes between Kurdish protesters and security forces have since continued.

The al-Assad family comes from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that comprises an estimated 12 percent of the Syrian population. It has maintained tight control on Syria's security services, generating resentment among some Sunni Muslims, a sect that makes up about three quarters of Syria's population. Minority Kurds have also protested and complained. Bashar al-Assad initially asserted that his state was immune from the kinds of mass protests that took place in Egypt. Bouthaina Shaaban, a presidential adviser, blamed Sunni clerics and preachers for inciting Sunnis to revolt, such as Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi in a sermon in Doha on 25 March. According to The New York Times, the Syrian government has relied "almost exclusively" on Alawite-dominated units of the security services to fight the uprising. His younger brother Maher al-Assad commands the army's Fourth Armored Division, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, was the deputy minister of defense.

Socio-economics

Socio-economic complaints have been reported, such as a deterioration in the country's standard of living, a reduction of state support for the poor resulting from the gradual transition towards a free market economy, the erosion of subsidies for basic goods and agriculture, free trade without suitable support to the local industry, and particularly high youth unemployment rates.

Human rights

The state of human rights in Syria has long been the subject of harsh criticism from global organizations. The country was under emergency rule from 1963 until 2011, effectively granting security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention. The Syrian government has justified this by pointing to the fact that the country has been in a continuous state of war with Israel. After taking power in 1970, Hafez al-Assad quickly purged the government of any political adversaries and asserted his control over all aspects of Syrian society. He developed an elaborate cult of personality and violently repressed any opposition, most notoriously in the 1982 Hama Massacre. After his death in 2000 and the succession of his son Bashar al-Assad to the Presidency, it was hoped that the Syrian government would make concessions toward the development of a more liberal society; this period became known as the Damascus Spring. However, al-Assad is widely regarded to have been unsuccessful in implementing democratic change, with a 2010 report from Human Rights Watch stating that he had failed to improve the state of human rights since taking power ten years prior. All other political parties have remained banned, thereby making Syria a one-party state without free elections.

Rights of expression, association and assembly are strictly controlled in Syria. The authorities harass and imprison human rights activists and other critics of the government, who are oftentimes indefinitely detained and tortured in poor prison conditions. While al-Assad permitted radio stations to play Western pop music, websites such as Amazon, Facebook, Misplaced Pages and YouTube were blocked until 1 January 2011, when all citizens were permitted to sign up for high speed Internet, and those sites were allowed. However, a 2007 law requires Internet cafes to record all comments that users post on online chat forums.

In an interview published 31 January 2011, al-Assad declared it was time to reform, that the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen indicated a "new era" was coming to the Middle East, and that Arab rulers needed to do more to accommodate their peoples' rising political and economic aspirations.

Women and ethnic minorities have faced discrimination in the public sector. Thousands of Syrian Kurds were denied citizenship in 1962, and their descendants continued to be labeled as "foreigners" until 2011, when 120,000 out of roughly 200,000 stateless Kurds were granted citizenship on 6 April. Because the government is dominated by the Alawite sect, it has had to make some gestures toward the majority Sunni sects and other minority populations in order to retain power.

Censorship of events

Since demonstrators began calling for Assad's ouster in March, the regime has imposed a blackout on independent news coverage, barring foreign reporters from entering and reporting freely, and detaining and attacking local journalists who try to cover protests. Numerous journalists have gone missing or been detained without charge, and many said they were tortured in custody. International media have relied heavily on footage shot by citizen journalists in very dangerous conditions. Several journalists had been killed on duty. In its campaign to silence media coverage, the government disabled mobile phones, landlines, electricity, and the Internet. Authorities have routinely extracted passwords of social media sites from journalists through beatings and torture. The pro-government online group the Syrian Electronic Army has frequently hacked websites to post pro-regime material, and the government has been implicated in malware attacks targeted at those reporting on the crisis.

In August 2011, Syrian security forces attacked the country's best-known political cartoonist, Ali Farzat, a noted critic of Syria's government and its crackdown. Relatives of the severely beaten humorist told Western media that the attackers threatened to break Farzat's bones as a warning to stop drawing cartoons of government officials, particularly Assad. Farzat, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was hospitalized with fractures in both hands and blunt force trauma to the head. Also, government loyalists have been blamed for cutting the vocal chords of poets and other censorship crimes of this nature.

Protests and military sieges

As protests continued, the Syrian government used tanks and snipers to force people off the streets. Water and electricity were shut off in the city of Daraa, and security forces began confiscating flour and food. A similar situation was reported in Homs. In May, the Syrian army entered the cities of Baniyas, Hama, Homs, Talkalakh, Latakia, the Al-Midan and Douma districts of Damascus, and several other towns.

Baniyas was besieged in early May, and divided into zones of de facto control, with protesters largely controlling the south and security forces enforcing the laws of the government in the north. Major demonstrations saw nearly 20 deaths on 6 May, and the government said 11 soldiers were shot by "armed groups" on the same day. The violent suppression of protests in Homs, Daraa, and other rebellious cities continued throughout the month. A 17 May report of claims by refugees coming from Telkalakh on the Lebanese border indicated that sectarian attacks may have been occurring. Sunni refugees said that uniformed Alawite Shabiha militiamen were killing Sunnis in the town of Telkalakh. The reporter also stated that according to arms dealers, "sales of black market weapons in Lebanon have skyrocketed in recent weeks driven almost entirely by demand in Syria."

Early June, the Syrian government said more than 20 Syrian demonstrators were shot dead at the Golan Heights by Israeli forces, when trying to cross the cease-fire line during Naksa Day demonstrations. This was perceived by Israelis as a way for the Syrian government to divert attention from the Syrian unrest by allowing demonstrators to reach all the way to the Golan Heights. The army also besieged the northern cities of Jisr ash-Shugur and Maarat al-Numaan near the Turkish border. The Syrian Army claimed the towns were the site of mass graves of Syrian security personnel killed during the uprising and justified the attacks as operations to rid the region of "armed gangs", though local residents claimed the dead Syrian troops and officers were executed for refusing to fire on protesters. The siege of Daraa continued in the meantime, with a French journalist reporting famine-like conditions in the town. On 20 June, in a speech lasting nearly an hour, in response to the demands of protesters and foreign pressure, Assad promised a "national dialogue" involving movement toward reform, new parliamentary elections, and greater freedoms. He also urged refugees to return home from Turkey, while assuring them amnesty and blaming all unrest on a small number of "saboteurs". The speech received mixed reactions domestically and abroad and was largely dismissed by protesters. On 30 June, large protests erupted against the Assad government in Aleppo (Syria's second largest city) which were labeled the "Aleppo volcano".

In mid-July, pro-government protesters attacked the US and French embassies in Damascus, responding to those countries' support for the opposition. Attacks on protests continued throughout July, with government forces repeatedly firing at protesters and employing tanks against demonstrations, as well as conducting arrests. On 31 July, a siege of Hama escalated during a so-called "Ramadan Massacre", in which at least 136 people were killed and hundreds wounded when Syrian forces attacked demonstrators across the country, employing tanks, artillery and snipers. Most of the deaths occurred in Hama.

Formation of the Free Syrian Army

On 29 July, a group of defected officers announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which would become the main opposition army. Composed of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel and civilian volunteers, the rebel army seeks to remove Bashar al-Assad and his government from power. This began a new phase in the conflict, with more armed resistance against the government crackdown. The FSA would grow in size, to about 20,000 by December, and to an estimated 40,000 by June 2012.

On 23 August, a coalition of anti-government groups was formed, the Syrian National Council. The opposition, including the FSA, remained a fractious collection of political groups, longtime exiles, grass-roots organizers and armed militants, divided along ideological, ethnic or sectarian lines.

Syrian forces continued to bombard Hama in early August 2011, along with attacks in other cities and towns. On the first full weekend of Ramadan, the Arab League and several Gulf Cooperation Council member states led by Saudi Arabia broke their silence on the events in Syria to condemn the government's response. Throughout August, Syrian forces stormed major urban centers and outlying regions, and continued to attack protests.

On 14 August, fighting in Latakia continued as the Syrian Navy became involved in the military crackdown. Gunboats fired heavy machine guns at waterfront districts in Latakia as ground troops and security agents backed by armor stormed several neighborhoods. Up to 28 people were killed. Eight more civilians were killed elsewhere in the country. Throughout the next few days, the Siege of Latakia dragged on, with government forces and shabiha militia continuing to fire on civilians in the city, as well as throughout the country over the following days. On 30 August, during the first day of Eid ul-Fitr, thousands of people demonstrated in Homs, Daraa, and suburbs of Damascus. Nine people were killed when security forces fired on these demonstrations. Eid celebrations in the country were reportedly muted, with people trying to visit the graves of their loved ones being killed. Protests continued into the following months, with security forces and militia continuing to fire at demonstrators and raid towns and neighborhoods across the country.

Six months into the uprising, the inhabitants of Syria's two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, remain largely uninvolved in the anti-government protests. The two cities central squares have seen rallies in the tens of thousands in support of Assad and his government. Analysts and even opposition activists themselves acknowledge that without mass participation in the protest movement from these two cities, the government will survive and avoid the fate of its counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia.

The first major confrontation between the FSA and the Syrian armed forces occurred in Rastan. From 27 September to 1 October, Syrian government forces, backed by tanks and helicopters, led a major offensive on the city of Rastan in Homs province, which had been under opposition control for a couple weeks. There were reports of large numbers of defections in the city, and the Free Syrian Army reported it had destroyed 17 armoured vehicles during clashes in Rastan, using RPGs and booby traps. The Harmoush battalion also reported that it killed 80 loyalist soldiers in fighting. A defected officer in the Syrian opposition claimed that over a hundred officers had defected as well as thousands of conscripts, although many had gone into hiding or home to their families, rather than fighting the loyalist forces. The Battle of Rastan between the government forces and the Free Syrian Army was the longest and most intense action up until that time. After a week of fighting, the FSA was forced to retreat from Rastan. To avoid government forces, the leader of the FSA, Col. Riad Asaad, retreated to the Turkish side of Syrian-Turkish border.

By the beginning of October, clashes between loyalist and defected army units were being reported fairly regularly. During the first week of the month, sustained clashes were reported in Jabal al-Zawiya in the mountainous regions of Idlib province. In mid-October, other clashes in Idlib governorate include the city of Binnish and the town of Hass in Idlib governorate near the mountain range of Jabal al-Zawiya. In late October, other clashes occurred in the northwestern town of Maarat al-Numaan in Idlib province between loyalists and defected soldiers at a roadblock on the edge of the town, and near the Turkish border, where 10 security agents and a deserter were killed in a bus ambush. It was not clear if the defectors linked to these incidents were connected to the Free Syrian Army.

In October, the Free Syrian Army began to get involved in the Siege of Homs, leading to heavy street fighting in several neighborhoods. During the early stages of the uprising, Homs was one of the most restless of all major cities. It experienced fierce crackdowns by security forces, as the protests began to evolve into an armed rebellion. Homs became what the opposition sometimes called the “Capital of the Revolution,” as the newly formed FSA began to gain ground and control of several quarters of the city.

Armed clashes and escalation

Throughout August, September, and October Syrian forces continued to suppress protests, with hundreds of killings and arrests reportedly having taken place. The crackdown continued into the first three days of November. On 3 November, the government accepted an Arab League plan that aims to restore the peace in the country. According to members of the opposition, however, government forces continued their suppression of protests. Throughout the month, there were numerous reports of civilians taken from their homes turning up dead and mutilated, clashes between loyalist troops and defectors, and electric shocks and hot iron rods being used to torture detainees.

The Arab Parliament recommended the suspension of Arab League member state Syria on 20 September 2011, over persistent reports of disproportionate violence against regime opponents and activists during the uprising. A vote on 12 November agreed to formally suspend Syria four days after the vote, giving Assad a last chance to avoid suspension. Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen voted against the motion, while Iraq abstained. Syria remained suspended as the Arab League sent in December a commission "monitoring" Syria's violence on protestors. By the end of January the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in the country due to worsening conditions and rising violence across the country.

Since 14 November, fighting between armed rebels and security forces began to intensity in Daraa Governorate, in Syria's south. Rebels engaged in ambushes against Syrian soldiers, and security forces attempted raids on restless towns.

On 14 November, more than 70 people were killed across Syria as the army clashed with defectors and shot at civilians. Some 34 soldiers and 12 defectors were killed, along with 27 civilians.

Activists said security forces killed up to 70 army defectors on 19 December as they were deserting their military posts near the Turkish border. At least 30 other people died in other violence across the country, the activists said. If accurate, it would be one of the heaviest daily tolls of the entire revolt up until December.

On 23 December two suicide bombs hit two security facilities in Damascus, killing 30 civilians and soldiers. The government stated the attack "carried the blueprint of al-Qaeda", whereas opposition members blamed the government, and hinted that the government itself may have been behind the attacks to make its case to Arab League observers who arrived in the country only the day before. Government officials brought the advance team of Arab League observers to the scene to see the wreckage. Omar Idilbi, a member of the Syrian National Council thought the explosions "very mysterious because they happened in heavily guarded areas that are difficult to be penetrated by a car." Two days earlier, Lebanese authorities had warned that al-Qaeda members were entering Syria from North Lebanon.

January saw intense fighting in the opposition stronghold of Homs, as the opposition claimed to have gained control of 2/3 of the city. However, starting in 3 February, the Syrian army launched a major offensive to retake rebel-held neighborhoods in the city. In early March, weeks artillery bombardments and heavy street fighting, the Syrian army eventually captured the district of Baba Amr, a major rebel stronghold. The Syrian Army also captured the district of Karm al-Zeitoun by 9 March, before activists claimed that government forces killed 47 women and children. By the end of March, the Syrian army retook control of half a dozen districts, leaving them in control of 70 percent of the city.

On 1 February, Riad al-Asaad, commander of the Free Syrian army, claimed that "Fifty percent of Syrian territory is no longer under the control of the regime," and that half of the country was now effectively a no-go zone for the security forces. He said the morale of government troops was extremely low. "That’s why they are bombing indiscriminately, killing men, women and children," he said.

Protests have drifted abroad to the doorsteps of Syrian embassies. After the opposition had claimed that more than 200 people perished in the massacre in Homs on 2 February 2012, both Syrian and non-Syrian protesters in Cairo, Kuwait City, and London damaged their respective Syrian embassy.

In an attack on buildings used by Syrian military intelligence in Aleppo, at least 28 people died and 235 were injured on 10 February 2012. The Free Syrian Army, through colonel Arif Hamood, claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with France 24, saying mortars and RPGs had been used instead of car bombs as was initially reported. However, shortly thereafter another FSA leader, Riad al-Asaad, denied FSA involvement and asserted a false-flag conspiracy in which the Assad government is presented as the perpetrator of the attack on its own buildings. A correspondent for the Dutch public broadcaster NOS described the latter as an unlikely explanation for the attacks, pointing out that the FSA have earlier indicated that one of their targets is military intelligence, which they hold responsible for a major part of the violence against the opposition.

Renewed fighting

Following the Houla massacre and the consequent FSA ultimatum to the Syrian government, the cease fire practically collapsed towards the end of May 2012, as FSA began nation-wide offensives against the government troops. On 1 June, the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to crush an anti-regime uprising, after the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) announced that it was resuming "defensive operations."

On 2 June, 57 soldiers were killed in Syria, the largest number of casualties the military has suffered in a single day since the uprising broke out in mid-March 2011.

Since 5 June, the Syrian army has been battling rebels around the city of Latakia, using tanks and helicopter gunships.

On 6 June, 78 civilians were killed in the Al-Qubair massacre. According to activist sources, government forces started by shelling the village before pro-government militia, the Shabiha, moved in. The UN observers rushed to the village in a hope to investigate the alleged massacre but were met with a road-block and small arms fire before the village and were forced to retreat.

At the same time, the conflict has started moving into the two largest cities (Damascus and Aleppo) that the government claimed were being dominated by the silent majority, which wanted stability, not government change. In both places there has been a revival of the protest movement in its peaceful dimension. Shopkeepers across the capital staged a general strike and in several Aleppo commercial districts mounted a similar but smaller protest. This has been interpreted by some as indicating that the historical alliance between the government and the business establishment in the large cities has become weak.

On 22 June, a Turkish F-4 fighter jet was shot down by Syrian government forces. Both pilots were killed. Syria stated that it had shot the fighter down using anti-aircraft artillery near the village of Om al-Tuyour, while it was flying over Syrian territorial waters one kilometre away from land. Turkey's foreign minister stated the jet was shot down in international airspace after accidentally entering Syrian airspace, while it was on a training flight to test Turkey's radar capabilities. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed retaliation, saying: "The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed ... Turkey will support Syrian people in every way until they get rid of the bloody dictator and his gang." Ankara acknowledged that the jet had flown over Syria for a short time, but said such temporary overflights were common, had not led to an attack before, and alleged that Syrian helicopters had violated Turkish airspace five times without being attacked and that a second, search-and-rescue jet had been fired at. Assad later expressed regret over the incident. In August 2012, reports appeared in some Turkish newspapers claiming that the Turkish General Staff had deliberately misinformed the Turkish government about the fighter's location when it was shot down. The reports said that a NATO command post at Izmir and a British base in Cyprus had confirmed that the fighter was shot down inside Syrian waters and that radar intelligence from U.S. forces had disproved any "accidentally entered Syrian waters" flightpath error. The General Staff denied the claims.

Attempts by the international community to agree a transitional government of national unity failed at the beginning of July after Russia insisted the agreement should not preclude Assad from being part of it. Syrian opposition groups rejected the UN-brokered peace plan, arguing that it was ambiguous and vowing not to negotiate with President Assad or members of his regime.

In early July, Manaf Tlass, a Brigadier General of the Republican Guard, defected from Syria, making him the highest-level military defector yet since the uprising began. Western diplomats said his flight is a sign of Assad's weakening inner circle. Nawaf al-Fares, the Syrian ambassador to Iraq who has sympathized with the opposition movement since it began in March 2011, defected to the opposition in mid-July 2012.

See also

• List of articles related to the Syrian Civil War

References

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Further reading

• Hinnebusch, Raymond (2012). "Syria: From 'Authoritarian Upgrading' to Revolution?". International Affairs. 88 (1): 95–113. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01059.x.
• Lawson, Fred Haley, ed. (1 February 2010). Demystifying Syria. Saqi. ISBN 978-0-86356-654-7.
• Van Dam, Nikolaos (15 July 2011). The Struggle for Power in Syria: Politics and Society under Asad and the Ba'ath Party. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84885-760-8.
• Wright, Robin (2008). Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East. New York, NY: Penguin Press. pp. 212–261. ISBN 1-59420-111-0.
• Ziadeh, Radwan (2011). Power and Policy in Syria: Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations and Democracy in the Modern Middle East. London, GB: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-434-5.
• International Crisis Group (13 July 2011). "Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (VII): The Syrian Regimes Slow-Motion Suicide" (PDF). Middle East/North Africa Report N°109 – 13 July 2011. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
• Rashdan, Abdelrahman. Syrians Crushed in a Complex International Game. OnIslam.net. 21 March 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2012.

External links

• Syria Uprising collected coverage at Al Jazeera
• Guide: Syria Crisis at BBC News Online
• Syria collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Syria protests (2011) collected coverage at The New York Times
• Syrian uprising: A year in turmoil at The Washington Post
• Live updates on Syria’s uprising at NOW Lebanon
• The Reality of Events at Syrian Arab News Agency
• Syria News Latest News @ Syria
• Syria Tribune 3 Articles You Must Read
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