What's going on in Syria
Brief history of Syria
Whats going on now
status of the civil war
who is 'winning'
who is still fighting
When was the Arab spring
Time line of the civil war
what caused it in Syria
Politics under the Assad regime
Democracy
Assad became president of Syria in 2000 after the death of his father and a constitutional amendment process that lowered the age threshold to become president. He was elected in an unopposed election. [1]
He is leader of the Syrian Ba'ath party an arab naionalist party.
Some hope was held durring the early stages of the Assad regime that it could lead to liberalisition.
Early on Assad lifted restriction on the Muslim brotherhood and began to withdraw from Lebanon [2].
Under both his father and himself strides were made in the development of Syria with GDP per capitia and education greatly improving [3].
Despite hope there is little in the way of major change to democracy in Syria [4].
Early protests began as a major draught forced people into urban areas where they felt the government failed to properly look after them. Protests in Daraa began with demands for increased support, but they were voilently oppresed and led to increased tensions [6].
The country remained an effective one party state under the Ba'ath party with the only other legal parties being the Ba'aths coalition partners. The president comes from the Ba'ath party and is voted through in a sham referendum inwhich their victory is not in doubt. Particular oppresion is focused on the Kurds. [5]
Following this there were increased protests and at one point 15 boys were tortured and killed by the government for doing some pro arab spring grafiti. Protests and repression contuined in a cycle. [7]
Civil war started when parts of the Syrian army defected to the protestors and formed the Free Syrian Army. [8]
There is no clear winner, however the government are in control of large amounts of the country. SDF/Kurdish forces do still control some territory in the North East and there are a few rebel hold outs in and around Allepo province. [10]
SDF and Kurdish rebels.
Syrian government and allied groups such as Hezbollah.
Turkish backed rebels.
Turkey and its allied rebel groups (The Syrian National Army/Free Syrian Army) maintian a foothold in the north of the country. [9]
The future
A bleak outlook for Syria.
Kurdish rebel groups have little incentive to stop fighting the government and will likely maintian attempts to asert some level of control over their territory due to reasonable fears of post conflict repression.
Attempts to see a peace deal signed have failed.
[11]
Rehabilitation of Assad
In recent months it looks like parts of the international community have decided that the Assad regime has all, but won the war in Syria. They have been invited to the Arab League and Cop28 [12].
This has been condemed by the west.