- A country in Southwestern Asia | on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea |
- Shares borders | with Turkey (north) | with Iraq (east and southeast) | with Jordan (south) | with Lebanon (southwest) | with Israel (southwest) |
- Coastline | 110 miles | across the Mediterranean Sea |
- Capital city | Damascus (Dimashq) |
- Population | 24 million |
- Ethnic groups | Arab (50%) | Alawite (15%) | Kurd (10%) | Levantine (10%) | Others (15%) (includes Druze, Ismaili, Imami, Nusairi, Assyrian, Turkoman, Armenian) | source – CIA World Factbook |
- Religions | Muslim 87% (official; includes Sunni 74% and Alawi, Ismaili, and Shia 13%) | Christian 10% (includes Orthodox, Uniate, and Nestorian) | Druze 3% | source – CIA World Factbook |
- 1946 | gained independence | from a joint occupation of French and British forces |
- 1970 | Authoritarian rule/one-party/one man rule started | by Hafez al-Assad |
- 2000 | Bashar al-Assad became Syrian president | after his father Hafez al-Assad died |
- Assad regime | backed by Iran and Russia |
- 2011 | outbreak of civil war in Syria | The Arab Spring’s revolution in Syria |
- Pro-democracy and anti-regime protests began in Daraa | soon spread through out Syria |
- The Syrian regime took violent measures to suppress the protests | killings | disappearances | using police, military and paramilitary |
- By 2012 | the peaceful democracy protests began a full-fledged civil war with armed opposition militias cropping up in different parts of Syria |
- Bashar al-Assad was from a minority Alawite community | with people from the community dominating Syrian military and other security forces and militias supporting the Assad regime | while protesters were mostly Sunni Muslims | which led to the emergence of sectarian violence in the Syrian civil war |
- 2012 | Hezbollah fighters join the regime forces against the rebels | with Syria getting arms from Iran Hezbollah both |
- April 2013 | ISIS emergence in Syria | won and made Raqqa city its base in eastern Syria | expanded its operations | and soon, a wider area of Iraq and Syria came under its control |
- Aug 2013 | Chemical attack in rebel-held territory by pro-Assad forces | Eastern Ghouta | hundreds killed |
- Sept 2014 | US airstrikes to assist Kurdish forces | An anti-Islamic State coalition was formed led by the US to target ISIS |
- Sept 2015 | Russia intervenes militarily | deployed warplanes | to assist Assad regime |
- 2016 | Witnessed collapse of ISIS | with three war fronts against it | led by US (helping Kurdish forces), Turkey (backing a group of rebel forces), and Assad regime (backed by Iran and Russia) |
- Dec 2016 | Syrian forces | helped by Russia retook Aleppo |
- Nov 2017 | The Islamic State loses Raqqa | to US-backed Kurdish forces |
- April 2018 | pro-Assad forces reclaim Eastern Ghouta |
- By 2018 | Assad forces in control of areas near Damascus, Homs, Daraa, & Quneitra | with Idlib, the region under rebels’ control |
- June 2020 | Caser Act by the US | Tough sanctions against the Assad regime and overall country, including the rebel-held areas |
- May 2021 | Bashar al-Assad re-elected for the 4th time as Syrian president | claims he received 95.1% of votes |
- Nov – Dec 2024 | New offensives by rebel groups | leading to the fall of Damascus and Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
