Syria: Which countries have been involved in the war and why?

A shocking 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 warfare, 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 aspect, Russia and Iran – which backed Assad – and on the opposite, the US and Turkey, which supported completely different insurgent teams.

Here we discover how these international locations, together with Israel, have performed a task in Syria – and will proceed to take action.

During Syria’s civil warfare, 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 using rebels to contain the Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey accuses of being an extension of a domestically banned Kurdish insurgent group. Turkey additionally needs the roughly three million Syrian refugees dwelling in its nation to return house.

The YPG is the most important militia in one other insurgent group, the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.

During the warfare, 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 believe 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 already had a decades-long relationship with the Assad authorities, and had army bases there earlier than the civil warfare.

In 2015, Russia launched an air marketing campaign and despatched 1000’s of troops in help of the Assad regime.

In return, Russia acquired 49-year leases on an air base and naval base, which supplied essential hubs within the jap Mediterranean for transferring army contractors out and in of Africa.

But combating a warfare 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 have been granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus, Russian media reported.

After Syria’s pro-democracy protests in 2011 have been met with pressure, then US-president Barack Obama criticised the Assad authorities – however the US solely became involved militarily with the intention 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 said it conducted dozens of air strikes in opposition to IS camps and operatives in central Syria to make sure IS couldn’t make the most of the unstable state of affairs.

However, President-elect Donald Trump, who takes workplace in January, said 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 step by step rowed again.

The US presently has round 900 troops in Syria.

Iran and Syria have been allies since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Syria backed Iran through the Iran-Iraq warfare within the Eighties.

During the Syrian civil warfare, Iran is believed to have deployed a whole bunch of troops and spent billions of {dollars} to assist Assad.

Thousands of Shia Muslim fighters armed, educated 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, doubtless hastening the downfall of the Syrian army.

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 is just not recognised by the UN and plenty of different international locations.

Israel has conducted air strikes in opposition to Iran-linked targets in Syria through the warfare, though it hardly ever acknowledges such strikes.

Since rebels overthrew Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks throughout Syria. Targets embrace Syria’s army infrastructure, naval fleet, and weapons manufacturing websites.

Israel stated it’s performing to cease weapons falling “into the hands 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.