Syrian Conflict (2011-)

Geo-political and historical context

 Syria can be taken as a miniature of Middle East
with its numerous ethnic and religious groups
There are living: Muslims • Alawites are the most
(Sunni), Alawites, Christian oppressed and recalcitrant of
Arabs, Druzes, Ismailis, Kurds, Syria’s Arab minorities; the
resemblance to the Shi’ítes
Armenians. constitutes the least of their
heresies in the eyes of Syria’s
majority Sunni Arabs.
• Though Alawites constituted
just 12% of the Syrian
population, they reached the
power after the coup of 1970,
in the person of Hafez al-
Assad.
 Political and economic problems were pushing the country
toward instability

• Assad succeeded his father in 2000 with a

reputation as a modernizer and a reformer.
• Assad revived the authoritarian tactics of his
late father’s administration, including
pervasive censorship and surveillance and
brutal violence against suspected opponents
of the regime.
On the eve of the uprising, Syrian society
remained highly repressive, with increasingly
conspicuous inequalities in wealth and privilege.
 This armed conflict began with anti-government
protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war
• March 2011 - Violence starts in Daraa after a group of teens and children
are arrested for writing political graffiti. Dozens of people are killed when
security forces crack down on demonstrations.

• By July 2011, opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to

defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.
• What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has
mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.
 Pro-Assad supporters in 2010 and 2012

In response to continuing
protests, the Syrian
government announces several
plans to appease citizens.
 When the civil war began in 2011, there were four main
factions of fighting groups throughout the country:
• Kurdish forces

• ISIS

• Opposition

• the Assad regime

But as ISIS loses control of most of its territory, combatants are now freer to attack each
other.
 So-called Islamic State
• It capitalised on the chaos
and taken control of large
parts of Syria and Iraq,
where it proclaimed the
creation of a "caliphate" in
June 2014.
• Its many foreign fighters
are involved in a "war
within a war" in Syria,
battling rebels and rival
jihadists from the al-
Qaeda-affiliated Nusra
Front, as well as
government and Kurdish
forces.
International involvement – Many groups and countries -
each with their own agendas - are involved, making the
situation more complex and prolonging the fighting.
 Who is involved? – international actors
• In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to
"degrade and ultimately destroy" IS.
• În 2015, Russia began an air campaign targeting "terrorists" in Syria and supporting
Assad.
– opposition activists say its strikes have mostly killed Western-backed rebels and civilians.
• Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to help
Mr Assad.
• Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen have
provided important battlefield support since 2013 for the Syrian government.
• The US, UK, France and other Western countries have provided varying degrees of
support for what they consider "moderate" rebels.
• Turkey has long supported the rebels but it has focused on using them to stop the
Kurdish militia.
• Saudi Arabia, which is keen to counter Iranian influence, has also armed and financed
the rebels.
• Israel has been so concerned by shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Syria that
it has conducted air strikes in an attempt to thwart them.
 Syrian political arena
• Opposition groups are deeply divided, with rival
alliances battling for supremacy.
• The most prominent is the National Coalition
for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces,
backed by several Western and Gulf Arab states.
• However, the exile group has little influence on
the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected
by many opponents of Mr Assad.
April 13, 2018 - The United
States, France and the
United Kingdom launch
airstrikes on Syria in
response to the chemical
weapons attack in Eastern
Ghouta a week earlier.
Peace efforts - who will be first to ceasefire?
• The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of
the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional
governing body with full executive powers "formed on the basis of
mutual consent„ - UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
• Talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two
rounds, with then-UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the
Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands.
• The US and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the
government and the opposition to attend "proximity talks" in
Geneva in January 2016 to discuss for ceasefire and a transitional
period ending with elections – no success.
• President Assad has appeared increasingly unwilling to negotiate
with the opposition.
• The rebels still insist he must step down as part of any settlement.
 A Syrian official said, on the basis of anonymity,
“We can’t live together anymore, hatred is much
more than we can bear.”
• The conflict is now more than • According to Zaidon
just a battle between those Alzoabi, an opposition
for or against Bashar Assad. activist, “The regime holds
• It has acquired sectarian part of the responsibility for
overtones, leaning the the sectarian incitement”,
country's Sunni majority • He added. “But the bigger
against the Alawite sect and amount of incitement that
drawn in regional and world happened on both sides is
powers. to be blamed on the media
• The rise of the jihadist group side, Addounia, Aljazeera,
Islamic State (IS) has added a and Alarabiya. They are
further dimension. playing a dirty role in this.”
 Will the war ever end?
• Political science says Syria’s civil war will probably last at least
another decade.
• The researchers show that the average civil war was 10 year;
but this situation becomes more complicated, because civil
wars are longer and bloodier than average when foreign
powers intervene; also, civil wars with lots of factions last
longer than average.
• The conclusions are very surprising if we look at the
neighboring countries.
– Lebanon had a civil war, also with sectarian divisions and foreign
interventions that lasted more than 15 years.
– Afghanistan had its 1980s war followed by another civil war in the
1990s between the victorious rebel groups
 Consequences
• By March 2018, an
estimated 400,000 Syrians have
been killed or are missing,
according to the UN Envoy for
Syria. • As of April 2018, more than 5.6
• Vast devastation in cities across million Syrians have fled the
Syria country, according to the UN
Deir al Zour in June 2010 and in April
HIgh Commissioner for Refugees,
2014 – whole city blocks were devastated and more than 6 million people
are displaced internally.
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