# Syrian Civil War The **Syrian Civil War** ran from the uprising against [[Bashar al-Assad]] in March 2011 to the fall of Damascus on December 8, 2024. It was the defining proxy war of its era: Russia, Iran and [[Hezbollah]] fought to keep Assad in power; the United States, Turkey and the Gulf states backed different rebel and Kurdish forces; the [[Islamic State]] carved a caliphate out of its eastern half; and the [[Wagner Group]] learned there the trade it later took to Africa. It killed at least 306,000 civilians by the UN's count and displaced half the country. > [!note] Division of labor > This page owns the war. The country today is at [[Syria]]; the fallen government at [[Assad Regime]]; the 2018 clash between US forces and Wagner at [[Battle of Khasham]]. ## Phases | Period | What happened | |---|---| | Mar 2011 | Teenagers arrested and tortured for anti-Assad graffiti in Deraa; protests spread nationwide; March 15 is kept as the anniversary | | 2011–2012 | Crackdown turns the uprising into an armed insurgency (Free Syrian Army); Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, announced January 2012 | | 2013 | Hezbollah fights for Assad; Aug 21 sarin attack on Ghouta kills between ~350 (UK estimate) and 1,429 (US estimate) people; Assad agrees in September to surrender his declared chemical arsenal under a US–Russian deal | | 2014 | ISIS takes Raqqa, declares a caliphate on June 29; US airstrikes begin in August | | Sep 30, 2015 | Russia's air campaign begins; Wagner deploys and is paid in oil rights through [[Evro Polis]] | | Dec 2016 | Assad retakes Aleppo with Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias | | Apr 2017 | Sarin attack on Khan Shaykhun; the US fires 59 Tomahawks at Shayrat airbase on the night of April 6–7 | | Oct 2017 | US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa | | Feb 2018 | [[Battle of Khasham]] | | Apr 2018 | Chlorine attack on Douma; US, UK and France strike chemical-weapons targets on April 14 | | Mar 23, 2019 | SDF declares the territorial defeat of ISIS at Baghuz | | Oct 2019 | After a Trump–Erdoğan call, the US pulls back from the border and Turkey launches Operation Peace Spring against the Kurdish-led SDF | | Mar 5, 2020 | Putin–Erdoğan ceasefire freezes the war in Idlib for four years | | Nov 27 – Dec 8, 2024 | [[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham]]-led offensive takes Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus; Assad flies to Moscow and is granted asylum, ending 53 years of Assad family rule | ## The toll | Measure | Figure | Source | |---|---|---| | Civilians killed, Mar 2011–Mar 2021 | 306,887 (documented plus statistically estimated) | UN human rights office, June 2022 | | All deaths since 2011 | More than 528,500 documented | Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Jan 2025 | | Deaths in Assad's prisons | More than 64,000 | Syrian Observatory, Jan 2025 | | Executions at Sednaya prison, 2011–2015 | 5,000–13,000 | Amnesty International, 2017 | | Refugees abroad at peak | About 6.6 million | UNHCR | | Refugees returned since Dec 2024 | About 1.67 million, plus 1.9 million internally displaced returning home (to May 2026) | UNHCR | ## Why it matters to this vault The war is the hinge for several of the vault's through-lines: Russia's return as a military power in the Middle East and the testing ground for [[Plausible Deniability]] through Wagner; the US "red line" fight of 2013, which hardened right-wing critiques of Obama; Trump's 2019 withdrawal that left the Kurds exposed; and, after 2024, Trump's embrace of the former jihadist [[Ahmed al-Sharaa]] and the end of US sanctions on Syria. ## See Also - [[Syria]] · [[Assad Regime]] · [[Bashar al-Assad]] · [[Ahmed al-Sharaa]] · [[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham]] - [[Islamic State]] · [[Hezbollah]] · [[Iran]] · [[Russia]] · [[Turkey]] · [[Kurds]] - [[Wagner Group]] · [[Evro Polis]] · [[Battle of Khasham]] · [[Arab Spring]] · [[Proxy War]]