After almost 25 years of French administration, the independent Syrian Arab Republic was founded in 1946. In 1958 Syria became part of the United Arab Republic, but seceded three years later. In 1971, Hafez al-Assad took power in a military coup and remained President until his death in 2000. During this period, the Muslim Brotherhood was in conflict with the state from 1979-82. Hafez was succeeded by his son, and current leader, Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family belongs to a religious minority, the Alawite Muslims, and their control of power in Syria has caused unrest with the Sunni Muslim majority. The secularization of the state is supported by other minorities, such as the Christians, but several uprisings have occurred against the Assad clan. Originally peaceful protests against the government during the Arab Spring of 2011 were violently suppressed, leading to the current conflict between the government and various opposition groups.
Syria has also engaged in several conflicts with its neighbor, Israel, most often over the disputed Golan Heights area, which was occupied by Israel in 1967. From 1975 to 1990 Syria also provided secondary warring support to various organizations involved in the intrastate conflict in neighboring Lebanon, and the current conflict in Syria has close ties with Lebanese actors. Syria is currently experiencing three wars; one between the government and opposition groups, one between Islamist groups and Kurdish forces, and one involving inter-opposition violence. The war between opposition groups and the government has cost the lives of over 400,000 since the 2011 uprising and has created at least 6.8 million international refugees, with a further 6.7 million internally displaced. The opposition mainly consists of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), its military wing; Islamist groups such as the Jaish al-Fatah and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham; Kurdish groups; and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, now IS). Clashes between the opposition groups themselves also escalated to war in 2014 and have killed at least 11,000 people. The conflict dynamics in Syria have been influenced by territorial advances of IS, with the group announcing an Islamic caliphate (Islamic State) covering parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. IS’ expansion led to an international coalition conducting hundreds of airstrikes against major Islamist groups in Syria in 2014. After significant territorial gains in 2015, areas under IS control were reduced in 2016. The Assad regime reestablished major control once retaking critical cities such as Aleppo, the suburbs of Damascus, and Daraa by the end of 2018. At the end of 2019, US withdrew troops from Syria, which was soon followed by Turkish attacks on Kurdish regions.With Russian aid, Assad forces were able to enter Idlib, the final remaining region controlled by Turkish-backed rebel groups. Turkey and Russia worked to create a buffer zone in this region to prevent severe escalation of conflict, yet conflict soon expanded into the Kurdish region of Syria. Following civilian deaths, Turkey and Russia reached a ceasefire in March 2020. In 2021, Assad won his fourth term in office.
Syria’s nuclear program and chemical weapons have also caused international concerns in the past, with a non-violent crisis continuing since 2003 between the country and several international actors. On 23rd June 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and UN mission for the removal of chemical weapons in Syria was declared complete. However, various groups have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons after this date, and in May 2015 OPCW announced that traces of chemical weapons had been found at a military research site that the Syrian government had not previously declared. In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on a base allegedly storing chemical weapons. In 2018, the US, UK, and France conducted airstrikes due to a chemical weapons attack occurring in Douma.
Peace attempts:
In 2014 the UN, the EU, the Arabic League, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation backed a conference in an attempt to resolve the war between opposition groups and the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The parties met for two rounds of negotiations in January and February, in Montreaux and in Geneva, Switzerland during the UN-backed Geneva II Peace Conference. The talks, however, produced no definite agreements.
In 2015, Foreign Ministers of several nations met to try and find a way to end the conflict. An initial set of principles was rejected by the Syrian and Russian governments, but a meeting between the US and Russian Secretaries of State led to UN Resolution 2254. This Resolution put in place a ceasefire that came into effect on February 27th, 2016. However, by April the ceasefire had completely collapsed.
In 2016 a third UN-backed peace conference (Geneva III) took place but was suspended on 3rd February after the Syrian government and opposition refused to sit in the same room together. On 12th September a ceasefire negotiated by Russia and the US began but was ended by the Syrian government on 19th September following an accidental US-led coalition airstrike on government forces on 17th September.
In 2017, the UN-backed Geneva IV Peace Conference took place. Beginning on February 1st, it was subsequently suspended until February 25th by the UN envoy to Syria. A ceasefire consistent with the terms of Resolution 2254 began on February 27th.
In January 2017, Russia, Turkey, and Iran met in Astana engaging in numerous talks (Astana I, II, III, IV, V) to discuss a ceasefire and political settlement. Initially aiming to establish de-escalation areas, these talks failed to achieve a de-escalation in violence.
From 2019-2022, UN-facilitated talks discuss new constitution drafts, involving the Syrian Constitutional Committee, failed to make effective progress. Involved parties are unable to compromise and proceed with negotiations.
