Syrian civil war: A Visual History

The Syrian Civil War (2011-2024) began when Bashar al-Assad's regime shot protesters in Deraa and Damascus in March 2011. Defectors formed the Free Syrian Army; by 2013 the regime had lost half the country, used chemical weapons at Ghouta and was saved by Hezbollah and Iran; the Islamic State seized Raqqa and eastern Syria in 2014, drawing US-led air strikes and Kurdish-led SDF ground forces; Russia's intervention in September 2015 turned the war, and Aleppo fell to the regime in December 2016. Turkey carved out zones in the north; Idlib held the last rebels. Half a million died and 13 million fled or were displaced. In late November 2024 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led a lightning offensive from Idlib; Aleppo, Hama and Homs fell in ten days and Assad fled to Moscow on 8 December 2024.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Syrian Civil War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Estimated deaths in Syria by year

Timeline of the Syrian Civil War

1. 2011
   Deraa protests; uprising beginsMarch.
2. 2012
   Aleppo divided; FSA and Islamists gain
3. 2013
   Ghouta sarin attack
4. 2014
   ISIS caliphate; US-led strikes
5. 2015
   Russian interventionSeptember.
6. 2016
   Aleppo falls to the regimeDecember.
7. 2019
   ISIS territorially defeated; Turkish incursion
8. 2023
   Assad readmitted to the Arab League
9. 2024
   HTS offensive; Assad falls27 November to 8 December.

Uprising to civil war, 2011-2013

Boys arrested for graffiti in Deraa sparked protests; the regime answered with bullets, tanks and torture, and by summer 2011 army defectors were fighting back. Aleppo and much of the north fell to rebels in 2012; Sunni Islamist brigades, funded from the Gulf and Turkey, outgrew the FSA, and Jabhat al-Nusra brought al-Qaeda into the war. Iran and Hezbollah propped up the regime; the sarin attack on Ghouta in August 2013 killed over 1,400 but Obama's red line ended in a deal to remove Syria's declared chemical stockpile.

Islamic State, Russia and Aleppo, 2014-2018

ISIS split from al-Nusra, took Raqqa and in June 2014 declared its caliphate across Syria and Iraq; the US-led coalition bombed it and armed the Kurdish YPG, which held Kobane in 2015 and, as the SDF, took Raqqa in 2017 and the last ISIS enclave at Baghuz in 2019. Russia's air campaign from September 2015, with Iranian militias on the ground, retook Aleppo in December 2016 and Ghouta, Deraa and the south by 2018, using sieges, barrel bombs and evacuation buses. Turkey invaded Afrin and the border strip against the Kurds; Israel struck Iranian targets.

Frozen war and collapse, 2019-2024

Idlib, held by HTS (al-Nusra's rebranded successor under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), was frozen by a Russian-Turkish deal in 2020. Assad, apparently victorious, was readmitted to the Arab League in 2023 while Syria's economy collapsed under sanctions and captagon trafficking. With Russia distracted in Ukraine and Hezbollah shattered by Israel in 2024, HTS and allies attacked on 27 November 2024: Aleppo fell in three days, Hama and Homs followed, and on 8 December rebels entered Damascus as Assad flew to Russia. Al-Jolani, as Ahmed al-Sharaa, became transitional president; the prisons of Sednaya were opened, and Syria's future, with Kurds, Alawites and Druze wary and Israel occupying more of the Golan, remains uncertain.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• Second French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)

Wars of the same era and region

• Iraqi conflict (2003 to present)
• Arab-Israeli conflict (1948 to present)
• Kurdish-Turkish conflict (1978 to present)
• Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 to present)
• Lebanese Civil War (1975 to 1990)
• Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988)
• Yemeni Civil War (2014 to present)

8 surprising things about the Syrian Civil War

1. Syria's refugee outflow, over 6 million, was the largest since World War II until Ukraine, and reshaped European politics in 2015.
2. The Kurds' Rojava administration in the north-east was the first place ISIS was decisively defeated on the ground.
3. Barrel bombs, oil drums of explosives dropped from helicopters, became the regime's signature weapon.
4. Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader, once had a 10 million dollar US bounty on his head as al-Jolani.
5. The regime's Sednaya prison was called a 'human slaughterhouse' by Amnesty; its liberation in December 2024 revealed thousands missing.
6. Russia's Khmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base were its only Mediterranean footholds; their fate after Assad's fall was uncertain.
7. Assad's fall came 54 years after his father seized power in 1970.
8. The Caesar photographs, 55,000 images of tortured detainees smuggled out by a defector, documented the regime's crimes.

Sources

• Syrian civil war Wikipedia
• Syrian Civil War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Syria: How Assad's regime fell BBC News
• Charles Lister, The Syrian Jihad (2015) Hurst

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